Speaker 1: Threads takes the tech world by storm. The social media
Speaker 1: scam that wants to give you a free piano, Volkswagen
Speaker 1: tests self driving cars, plus your tech questions answered. What's
Speaker 1: going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: This show where I talk about the tech stuff I
Speaker 1: think you should know about. It's also the place where
Speaker 1: I answer your questions about technology. I believe that tech
Speaker 1: should be easy, helpful and inspiring. Phone lines are now
Speaker 1: open at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one.
Speaker 1: Give me a call. If you have a question about technology,
Speaker 1: email is also open. Send it to hello at richontech
Speaker 1: dot TV. Well, there is only one story in the
Speaker 1: tech world, one story in the entire tech world, and
Speaker 1: that is Threads. This is a new app created by
Speaker 1: Instagram that lets folks share text updates and join in
Speaker 1: on public conversations. It's basically Twitter, but from Instagram. It's
Speaker 1: all access through your Instagram account. Seventy million is that
Speaker 1: the last count. Seventy million people have signed up in
Speaker 1: less than two days. Any startup in the world would
Speaker 1: love to have that kind of number. How did it
Speaker 1: get there so fast? We'll talk about that more later
Speaker 1: in the show, but the bottom line is that because
Speaker 1: it's so tightly integrated with Instagram, it was super easy
Speaker 1: to sign up and find your followers and find people
Speaker 1: to follow, and that made it very sticky right away.
Speaker 1: And people are really having a blast with this thing.
Speaker 1: So I'll tell you more about threads and just moment,
Speaker 1: but I thought it'd be fun to kind of take
Speaker 1: a walk down social media history lane, because as tech folks,
Speaker 1: we get really excited about the latest and greatest things,
Speaker 1: and honestly, it's always been this way. It's been this
Speaker 1: way for a very long time, probably thirty years now.
Speaker 1: The very first social network that I remember was Friendster.
Speaker 1: Friendster was back in about two thousand and two, and
Speaker 1: it got some pretty big success. I think everyone was
Speaker 1: on friendstr and Friendster just pretty much lets you connect
Speaker 1: with friends. I don't remember much more about it than that.
Speaker 1: That's all I remember is that you kind of just
Speaker 1: connected with your friends on there. And I don't remember
Speaker 1: what we did on there, but we had our friends
Speaker 1: on there, and then all of a sudden, my Space
Speaker 1: came along, like a year later, and then everyone went
Speaker 1: to MySpace and we all said Ooh, this is really cool.
Speaker 1: My Space is really fun because it lets you customize
Speaker 1: your homepage, your profile page. It was kind of like
Speaker 1: a social network version of GeoCities, the website that everyone
Speaker 1: had their home on the web MySpace. We were all
Speaker 1: friends with Tom. Remember Tom. I guarantee you in your
Speaker 1: head you could think about what Tom looks like to
Speaker 1: this day, that white T shirt or maybe it was
Speaker 1: a black T shirt. I don't remember, but anyway, you
Speaker 1: could remember Tom, who could forget And the best part
Speaker 1: about MySpace is that it showed you how you knew someone.
Speaker 1: That was the best part is that you saw how
Speaker 1: you were connected and that was so really fun, and
Speaker 1: you were connected to everyone by the way. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's a person on MySpace that you were not
Speaker 1: connected to. And my Space was heavy on the music influence,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of music kind of built into
Speaker 1: MySpace and that was really I think what helped it
Speaker 1: take off too, is that you can listen to music
Speaker 1: on there and just share the kind of music you wanted,
Speaker 1: and really it just gave you a way to express yourself.
Speaker 1: For Square, remember that one four square came along and
Speaker 1: this I remember specifically checking into places in New York
Speaker 1: City when this came out, I believe I was working
Speaker 1: at c neet around the time, and for Square allowed
Speaker 1: you to check in at your favorite restaurant, your favorite bar,
Speaker 1: your favorite coffee shop, wherever you were and share that
Speaker 1: out and so people could see where you were, and
Speaker 1: if you checked in enough, you would become mayor of
Speaker 1: that place. And that was an honor to become the
Speaker 1: mayor of wherever you were. So for Square was pretty
Speaker 1: hot for a while and it was fun, it was great.
Speaker 1: It showed people where you were. That was the next
Speaker 1: kind of the geolocation part of this became a big
Speaker 1: part of social media networks. How about this one? Do
Speaker 1: you remember? Path? Path was a This was when everyone
Speaker 1: was sort of sick of social media. They wanted to
Speaker 1: go back in to just close friends and family. So
Speaker 1: Path was an app that was beautifully designed. It allowed
Speaker 1: you to share photos, video and messages with just a
Speaker 1: limited amount of people, just your friends and family. I
Speaker 1: think you can only have a certain amount on there.
Speaker 1: The problem is, well, we decided we like to go viral,
Speaker 1: we like to be public. We like to have random
Speaker 1: strangers say ooh that looks cool, ooh you look like
Speaker 1: you're in a cool place. Ooh, you look like you're
Speaker 1: eating at a cool restaurant. Okay, now this was a
Speaker 1: big one. Google Plus. I remember working at KTLA and
Speaker 1: Google Plus came out and it might have been the
Speaker 1: biggest thing we have ever seen in our entire lives.
Speaker 1: Google Plus was huge. It was launched by Google. It
Speaker 1: was so complicated, but it was supposed to be a
Speaker 1: challenger to Facebook, more private, more secure, better integrated with Google.
Speaker 1: And guess what, we all used it for about a
Speaker 1: week and that was it. I loved Google Plus. I
Speaker 1: love some of the features on there, it just never
Speaker 1: took off. How about Vine? Remember Vine? Vine gave you
Speaker 1: the ability to post six second videos. Now I never
Speaker 1: got on Vine. I was never big on Vine, but
Speaker 1: it was kind of a pathway to all of the
Speaker 1: current social media networks that deal with creators. Vine is
Speaker 1: where you really had to be super creative because you
Speaker 1: had to catch someone's attention in six seconds or less
Speaker 1: and be interesting and be funny and witty and smart
Speaker 1: and cool. And these videos looped so you'd watch them
Speaker 1: over and over, so these vines would have millions of views.
Speaker 1: Twitter bought Vine eventually shut it down, all right, Meerkat.
Speaker 1: I remember where I was for this one. This was
Speaker 1: the first time you could stream live from your smartphone.
Speaker 1: What an amazing thing, streaming live from your smartphone. I
Speaker 1: was at the Apple event up in Coopertino when this
Speaker 1: came out, and it was revolutionary. And of course now
Speaker 1: you can stream live from one thousand and one apps.
Speaker 1: Periscope came out a little bit later and kind of
Speaker 1: overtook this. Periscope was unbought by two Twitter and Meerkat
Speaker 1: was eventually shut down. So you see the pattern here, folks. Clubhouse,
Speaker 1: how about this one? Remember how hot Clubhouse was. You
Speaker 1: couldn't even get on Clubhouse, that's how hot it was.
Speaker 1: Even the name Clubhouse reminds me of trying to get
Speaker 1: into clubs in Hollywood. It's like, sorry, dude, not tonight.
Speaker 1: This was Clubhouse. This is an audio only app and
Speaker 1: I believe it's still around. But it was kind of
Speaker 1: built into Twitter as well with a feature called spaces
Speaker 1: and it's an audio only app where people discuss things
Speaker 1: in an audio only way, and it was it had
Speaker 1: a moment and now I'm not sure what the deal
Speaker 1: is with Clubhouse.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I didn't mention the successful social media networks Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram.
Speaker 1: These have set the foundation for our social media world today.
Speaker 1: These are the apps that are probably installed in a
Speaker 1: majority of smartphones. If you just ask a couple of people, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.
Speaker 1: They are the rst lne of social media apps right
Speaker 1: and now we have a new one, Instagram. Threads. People
Speaker 1: were so unhappy with Twitter, they were looking for a
Speaker 1: new outlet, and I think a lot of them found it.
Speaker 1: Threads is basically Twitter, but through Instagram. So you write
Speaker 1: a post, people comment on. The posts are called threads.
Speaker 1: It's all about real time conversations and the neat thing
Speaker 1: about threads. Not only that has seventy million people so overnight,
Speaker 1: it feels alive, it feels vibrant. It feels like your
Speaker 1: best friends are on there, and also your mom. And
Speaker 1: that's not a joke. I'm not saying your mom. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying like she might be on there at this point.
Speaker 1: Because they made it so easy to sign up, you
Speaker 1: log in with Instagram. It's available in one hundred countries
Speaker 1: Europe excluded, by the way, because of privacy situation. Posts
Speaker 1: can be up to five characters, they can include links, photos,
Speaker 1: and videos up to five minutes. You can share your
Speaker 1: threads to an Instagram story, or they even made it
Speaker 1: easy to post your thread to Twitter. I'm sure that'll
Speaker 1: be blocked soon. It's just one of these things that
Speaker 1: has taken off overnight and it's fun. And the reason
Speaker 1: why it's fun is because people are on there, and
Speaker 1: it's almost like the first day of school. All your
Speaker 1: friends are there, everyone's chatting, everyone's having a great conversation.
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing about this not only is it
Speaker 1: owned by Meta, which is a whole other conversation which
Speaker 1: we'll talk about soon, but it's built on an open
Speaker 1: platform called Activity pub which means theoretically, eventually you'll be
Speaker 1: able to use other apps to not only interact with
Speaker 1: people on threads, but also bring your threads account somewhere else.
Speaker 1: If Threads is not as fun anymore, you want to
Speaker 1: go somewhere else, maybe use a different app. Mastodon is
Speaker 1: one of the apps that also uses the same protocol.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of interesting that Facebook book would adopt
Speaker 1: an open protocol for this app. So Threads available now.
Speaker 1: You can find me on there. I am at rich
Speaker 1: on tech on threads and already just little old me
Speaker 1: has over I think ten thousand people on there because
Speaker 1: it let me bring over a lot or let my
Speaker 1: Instagram followers find me there. So Threads, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about that more on the show today. We've got
Speaker 1: some great guests. We've got a lot coming up.
Speaker 3: Coming up.
Speaker 1: We've got Casey Newton of Platformer. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: all things threads. Casey is sort of the expert on
Speaker 1: this thing. We also have Jacob Palmer of Best Reviews.
Speaker 1: He's going to join us to talk Amazon Prime Day deals.
Speaker 1: And then later in the show, doctor Renee Dua. She
Speaker 1: created an app called Heel. You might have heard of it.
Speaker 1: It's a doctor on demand app. Well, she has a
Speaker 1: new one. It's called Together and it can take your
Speaker 1: vital signs with just a selfie. But first it is
Speaker 1: your turn. We're going to have your calls coming up
Speaker 1: next at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: You can email me hello at richontech dot TV. Give
Speaker 1: me a call or email if you have a question
Speaker 1: about technology. My name is rich Demiro and you are
Speaker 1: listening to Rich on Tech. Let's go to Jennifer in
Speaker 1: Laguna Beach. Jennifer, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 5: Rich.
Speaker 6: I have an iPhone and my traveling buddy has an Android.
Speaker 6: Is there an app that would work across platforms to
Speaker 6: allow us to track each other's phones when we're on
Speaker 6: trips together in case one of us misplaces our phone.
Speaker 1: Ooh, good call. So they have an Android? You have
Speaker 1: an iPhone?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Okay? I think the best app for this is Life
Speaker 1: three sixty. Have you heard of that?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: Okay? So Life three sixty is basically and there are
Speaker 1: many many ways you can do this. There are many
Speaker 1: many ways, but Life three sixty is probably one of
Speaker 1: the best. Like location sharing, it's mostly for families, but
Speaker 1: it can be used for friends as well, and it's
Speaker 1: free for the main plan, so you can just sign
Speaker 1: up and use it for free, which is kind of nice.
Speaker 1: And for free you get two days of location history,
Speaker 1: two places with alerts, so if you wanted, like if
Speaker 1: you had a kid per se and you wanted to
Speaker 1: know every time that kid got back to their house
Speaker 1: or school, you can have two places set up and
Speaker 1: then SOS help alert so you can install this app,
Speaker 1: you invite your friend, and next thing you know you're
Speaker 1: both sharing your location on these on this app, cross platform,
Speaker 1: and this will work wherever you go. You'll be able
Speaker 1: to see the last known location. You'll also be able
Speaker 1: to see information about battery life on your phone. There's
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of things built into this app that will,
Speaker 1: I believe help with what you're asking about. Does that
Speaker 1: sound like it would work, Yeah.
Speaker 3: It really does.
Speaker 6: She misplaced her phone for a while on our last
Speaker 6: trip together, and that's what made us think that if
Speaker 6: we had a way we could try to each other's phone,
Speaker 6: it would have avoid a little bit.
Speaker 5: Of stress on her part.
Speaker 1: Now, if you have an Android phone or an iPhone,
Speaker 1: there's a couple of ways to find and locate those
Speaker 1: devices from any device, and so if you're an Android
Speaker 1: device user, you can just literally Google Find my device.
Speaker 1: So if you go to Google dot com slash Android
Speaker 1: slash find, you will see the last known look. You'll
Speaker 1: see all of the devices on your Google account. Now, obviously,
Speaker 1: if it's her phone or their phone, you will they
Speaker 1: will have to log in using their Google information, and
Speaker 1: so that you know, keep that in mind, especially with
Speaker 1: two factor authentication, But you can go to that as well,
Speaker 1: and then if you have an iPhone, I believe it's
Speaker 1: iCloud dot com slash find. Let's see if that's the address.
Speaker 1: Yeap iCloud dot com slash find. So, no matter what,
Speaker 1: you can find the devices. The problem is for most
Speaker 1: people they're gonna have to in from someone else's device.
Speaker 1: And guess what happens when that When that occurs, yeah.
Speaker 6: It's it's a challenge to get in, especially if you've
Speaker 6: got two factors set up. It's gonna send its code.
Speaker 1: So the phone you can't find exactly do we have
Speaker 1: a ding? That's uh, Jennifer, you got it. You don't
Speaker 1: even need me anymore. See I'm telling you. So that's
Speaker 1: the biggest problem. I mean, asking anyone to log in
Speaker 1: for anything on their phone is usually a situation because
Speaker 1: I'll tell people, you know, they'll come up to me
Speaker 1: and they'll have a problem with their device. I'll say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: let's log into this, and they say, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: know that password. It's gonna take me a while. So
Speaker 1: I think the Life three sixty will be a good solution.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are other solutions out there. There used
Speaker 1: to be one from Google that we were using cross
Speaker 1: platform that was pretty simple, but it was like a
Speaker 1: trusted contact situation. But I think that the Life three
Speaker 1: sixty app is set up to do things that you're
Speaker 1: asking for, and I think that's going to be the
Speaker 1: easiest way, uh to do it at this point. So
Speaker 1: we're you headed, you said Europe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we we went.
Speaker 6: To Ireland and Scotland last month and now in the
Speaker 6: fall we're going to Italy. So oh yeah, I know.
Speaker 6: I don't know how I got this lucky.
Speaker 2: I promise I went to Italy.
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. I went last year and there's not
Speaker 1: been a day that goes by that I have not
Speaker 1: thought about Italy in an entire year. So if you
Speaker 1: want to check out my Instagram at rich on Tech,
Speaker 1: scroll through my highlights and just look at Rome, and
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding, you will be so excited for your
Speaker 1: trip you can't wait. We had such a great time
Speaker 1: and it was just four days. I met my wife
Speaker 1: out there, she was on a work trip and we
Speaker 1: had such an amazing time. All right, Jennifer, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for calling today. I appreciate it. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you about the latest social media scam. According to the
Speaker 1: BBB Better Business Bureau, their scam tracker is getting a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of numerous a whole bunch of reports. It
Speaker 1: sounds like a friendly neighbor trying to give away their piano.
Speaker 1: But guess what, not so fast sopens through Facebook Marketplace.
Speaker 1: Someone's trying to get rid of their piano. But all
Speaker 1: you have to do is pay the shipping costs and
Speaker 1: they will put you in touch with the movers who
Speaker 1: will deliver it. Guess what They're gonna ask for money
Speaker 1: via zell, PayPal or another digital wallet app. They may
Speaker 1: even ask you to wire money or pay with a
Speaker 1: prepaid debit card. You send the money, the piano never arrives.
Speaker 1: One person fell for eight hundred and forty three dollars
Speaker 1: of this scam. Another person fourteen and twenty four dollars.
Speaker 1: Do not fall for this scam. It's apparently happening on Facebook,
Speaker 1: Marketplace and other platforms. Don't take the free piano unless
Speaker 1: you see it on the street. It's probably not free.
Speaker 1: It goes back to that old adage, if it sounds
Speaker 1: too good to be true, it probably is. Ah so
Speaker 1: many scams every day, all right, coming up, we are
Speaker 1: going to talk to Casey Newton of Platformer Casey's gonna
Speaker 1: talk all things threads. I've already had people say they
Speaker 1: found me on there, so I am at rich on
Speaker 1: Tech on Threads. If you haven't downloaded the app, I'll
Speaker 1: give you a little trick real quick. If you search
Speaker 1: inside Instagram for threads, a little ticket comes up. You
Speaker 1: tap that ticket and it will bring you to Threads.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we'll talk more about Instagram and Meta's new
Speaker 1: social network. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you, talking technology. Plus your calls at triple eight
Speaker 1: rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two, four to one zero one. If you have
Speaker 1: a call, hop on the line and give me a
Speaker 1: give me a ring. Don't forget to sign up for
Speaker 1: the newsletter. Just go to rich on Tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: Hit the newsletter icon or the link and you can
Speaker 1: sign up for a newsletter which is sort of dormant
Speaker 1: right now. But you never know when I will send
Speaker 1: something amazing out, so get on the list. It's free.
Speaker 1: Might as well be there. Samsung has announced that they
Speaker 1: are doing their next event in Korea. We knew that,
Speaker 1: but now we have a date. The date is July
Speaker 1: twenty sixth. Unpacked will be held for the very first
Speaker 1: time in Soeul, Korea. They say this is where traditional
Speaker 1: culture and futuristic visions intersect to inspire global trends and
Speaker 1: game changing innovation. So this event will be live streamed
Speaker 1: all over the place, including YouTube, Samsung TV Plus. I
Speaker 1: was actually at the barber shop and that was the
Speaker 1: first time I saw someone using Samsung TV Plus. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like their free TV built into all of
Speaker 1: their devices. There's a lot of programming on there. So
Speaker 1: what are they going to announce at this event? You
Speaker 1: already know. Oh, it's said join the flip side, So
Speaker 1: I think we already have an idea. So we're going
Speaker 1: to see the new Samsung Galaxy Z flip five and
Speaker 1: Z fold five, and so those devices will be pretty
Speaker 1: hot this time around, because foldables are a pretty big
Speaker 1: deal right now. We've got them from Google, we've got
Speaker 1: them coming up from one plus, and of course Samsung
Speaker 1: was the leader in this spot, but now they've got
Speaker 1: some good competition. So the event is actually going to
Speaker 1: happen at seven am Eastern, but because it's in Seoul, Korea,
Speaker 1: I believe it's going to be a nighttime event, and
Speaker 1: I guess I can tell you this now, but I
Speaker 1: will be there. So I am very, very excited to
Speaker 1: go to Korea and experience what it's going to be
Speaker 1: like there from their perspective, because I believe I would
Speaker 1: have to imagine that Korea is probably very popular with
Speaker 1: Samsung devices, whereas here in America we are very iPhone centric,
Speaker 1: and so we'll see what happens. It'll be interesting. Other
Speaker 1: things to note, Volkswagen launching their first autonomous driving test
Speaker 1: program here in the US. It's gonna happen in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: If you listen to the show, you know I was
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas recently. So this is gonna kick off
Speaker 1: this month with ten all electric ID Buzz vehicles. This
Speaker 1: is that little van I called it. Well, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like when I was a kid we had a van. Again.
Speaker 1: It kind of reminds me of that. So this is
Speaker 1: gonna be ten of these cars outfitted with autonomous driving
Speaker 1: technology developed by Volkswagen in partnership with a company called
Speaker 1: Mobile Eye, and they're gonna test this over the next
Speaker 1: three years and they're gonna keep growing this fleet. So
Speaker 1: it's gonna start with ten and keep going more, and
Speaker 1: they're gonna expand to at least four more cities in
Speaker 1: the US. I can already guess what those cities are
Speaker 1: gonna be. Probably gonna be Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: maybe San Francisco. Those are the cities that have been
Speaker 1: historically nice to self driving cars. So let's see what
Speaker 1: do they say. They're gonna be driven thousands of miles
Speaker 1: across a wide diversity of drive scenarios, and the technology
Speaker 1: on board includes cameras, radar, and light ar, and all
Speaker 1: vehicles would be staffed with a supervising human driver at
Speaker 1: all times throughout this initial test phase. So it's happening.
Speaker 1: Self driving cars definitely happening. It's happening fast up in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Apparently people are using cones to disable they're
Speaker 1: so annoyed with these self driving cars, they're using cones
Speaker 1: to disable them. I guess they put the cone on
Speaker 1: the hood of the car and it stops going. And
Speaker 1: they say that they're doing this because these these self
Speaker 1: driving cars are not only annoying, but they're ruining the streets.
Speaker 1: They're causing traffic tie ups. They don't always work right
Speaker 1: and people aren't happy there, all right, give me a
Speaker 1: call at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one.
Speaker 1: We do have our guest, Casey Newton of Platformer. Casey
Speaker 1: is kind of a big deal. Casey talks about social
Speaker 1: media and its relationship with the world. Very popular newsletter
Speaker 1: at platformer dot news. And it took me a while
Speaker 1: to get Casey on this show because Casey's a busy guy.
Speaker 1: So we are welcome to Casey to the show. Do
Speaker 1: we have them, Casey? Can you hear me?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 8: I can't.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 9: Hey, I'm sorry to be here. Sorry I'm a little
Speaker 9: bit late. It's been a moving week for me, so
Speaker 9: everything is insane.
Speaker 1: I hear that, so no problem, but welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me. Let's talk about threads. I am
Speaker 1: sure this has consumed your entire week, because has this
Speaker 1: been the fastest social media network to ever reach seventy
Speaker 1: million people in two days?
Speaker 2: It has an In.
Speaker 9: Fact, people are saying it might be the fastest app
Speaker 9: to hit one hundred million users ever, So we really
Speaker 9: have not seen anything like it.
Speaker 1: So how do you describe threads? I just said, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like Instagram's version of Twitter. How do you
Speaker 1: describe it?
Speaker 2: I think that that's about right. You know. The basic
Speaker 2: idea is to create a place where people.
Speaker 9: Can write sentences, share links, post photos and gifts, and
Speaker 9: just have public conversations.
Speaker 2: So that's definitely what Twitter is.
Speaker 9: And Meta will tell you that they're not trying to
Speaker 9: clone Twitter, that they want to make something better than Twitter,
Speaker 9: but at least the one point zero version looks a
Speaker 9: heck of a lot like Twitter.
Speaker 1: So what is your initial take on this? I mean,
Speaker 1: you've been following this very closely. I know you tried
Speaker 1: to be on vacation this week but that didn't happen,
Speaker 1: and you also got an interview in your podcast hard
Speaker 1: Fork with Adam Osseri, who heads Instagram. So what are
Speaker 1: your impressions of this? Tell me?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I like it a lot. I'm somebody
Speaker 2: who found Twitter very useful in doing my work.
Speaker 9: It's where I sort of got a sense of how
Speaker 9: people felt about what was going on in the news.
Speaker 9: It's where I would see stories as they were breaking.
Speaker 9: It would help me understand what I wanted to write.
Speaker 9: About during the day, and so when it started to
Speaker 9: collapse over the past six months, I was really sad
Speaker 9: and I felt like there needs to be a replacement
Speaker 9: for this, like this set of important things cannot be
Speaker 9: entrusted to Elon Musk. And so when this week we
Speaker 9: got something that effectively is a replacement for Twitter, and
Speaker 9: it started to grow very quickly, I just got very
Speaker 9: excited because I thought, this thing is going to solve
Speaker 9: all of the problems that Twitter.
Speaker 2: Used to solve for me.
Speaker 1: And so how is it compared to Twitter? Because I've
Speaker 1: been sort of flipping back and forth between the two.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm not the only person doing that. But
Speaker 1: at some point we sort of have to choose. Does
Speaker 1: that come soon? Does that come later? What's that process?
Speaker 10: Like?
Speaker 9: Well, I would say to people, you can choose now,
Speaker 9: you can stop using Twitter. There's no point to using Twitter.
Speaker 9: The Twitter experience is only going to get worse. Just
Speaker 9: look at the past six months. Everything that used to
Speaker 9: be free now costs you eight bucks a month. Okay,
Speaker 9: maybe that feels like a good experience to you. It
Speaker 9: doesn't feel like a good experience to me. What I
Speaker 9: used to get on Twitter for free, I can now
Speaker 9: get on threads for free. And I think the fact
Speaker 9: that so many people are moving over so quickly tells
Speaker 9: you about the demand for a product like that.
Speaker 1: And so you said it's free, what about the idea
Speaker 1: that this is owned by Meta? And just a few
Speaker 1: years ago people didn't really like Meta either because of
Speaker 1: all of the privacy issues in situation there. So what
Speaker 1: do we make of that at this point? Do we
Speaker 1: feel like metas cleaned up their act?
Speaker 9: Well, I do think that they're better at a lot
Speaker 9: of things than they used to be in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 9: But I definitely understand why people are skeptical, and we
Speaker 9: should be skeptical. You know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 9: these are for profit companies. They're trying to make a
Speaker 9: buck and they need, you know, journalists, regulators, academics to
Speaker 9: keep an eye on them and make sure that they're
Speaker 9: not doing, you know, anything inappropriate with with our data,
Speaker 9: our privacy, or anything else. At the same time, for me,
Speaker 9: it's just like, you know, the order of the day
Speaker 9: was to replace, and so let's focus on that, and
Speaker 9: then after that's done, then we can sort of bring
Speaker 9: all that scrutiny.
Speaker 2: Back to Meta.
Speaker 1: So Threads you're finding. I think the key genius to
Speaker 1: this whole situation is that your followers can follow you
Speaker 1: very easily on Threads, and that made this place very
Speaker 1: quickly vibrant and alive. Is that kind of like the
Speaker 1: magic of it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 9: I mean Instagram was just in such a great position
Speaker 9: to do this because they already had a very Twitter
Speaker 9: like user base, right in the sense that it was
Speaker 9: a lot of normal people following celebrities, influencers, athletes, journalists.
Speaker 2: Sometimes.
Speaker 9: It was just that the medium was much more visual,
Speaker 9: and that turns out to be a perfect springboard to
Speaker 9: launch something that is going to be a little bit
Speaker 9: more text based, right. You just sort of build a
Speaker 9: different container and then you import all of those accounts
Speaker 9: and it's just again, it's been really amazing seeing how
Speaker 9: in just a few short days so many of the
Speaker 9: really prominent users of Instagram have gone ahead and set
Speaker 9: up Threads account and are going crazy posting.
Speaker 1: Now. One of the things that Mosseeri said, I believe
Speaker 1: on your podcast, and that he didn't really see this
Speaker 1: as a place for hard news. Now, I think that
Speaker 1: many of the Threads users would already disagree with that.
Speaker 1: Can they control what happens on this platform.
Speaker 9: Uh, mostly No. You know, I think that was an
Speaker 9: interesting statement. It's gotten a lot of attention. In practice,
Speaker 9: these companies always just follow the lead of the users.
Speaker 9: You know, if the users of Threads decide that they
Speaker 9: want to see news on threads, there's going to be
Speaker 9: news on Threads. I saw that statement as a little
Speaker 9: bit of a marketing pitch, right. I think if you're
Speaker 9: trying to sell a new app to consumers, running out
Speaker 9: and saying, hey, there's gonna be a lot of breaking
Speaker 9: news on here, a lot of really divisive political stories,
Speaker 9: does it really seem very enticing. If instead you come
Speaker 9: out and say, hey, this is a place for creators
Speaker 9: and we want to have really kind fun conversations, you're
Speaker 9: probably going to be better off. So I think that
Speaker 9: was kind of the spirit in which Adam said that.
Speaker 9: But at the same time, this company has a lot
Speaker 9: of scar tissue around journalism, right, Like, they they're under
Speaker 9: so much scrutiny for you know, what, which publishers are
Speaker 9: on the platform and who's getting the most distribution. You know,
Speaker 9: there are laws in Australia and Canada that are trying
Speaker 9: to force them to pay just to display links, So
Speaker 9: they're they're really I think anxious about having some of
Speaker 9: the same problems that Twitter did.
Speaker 1: Now when you copied over your username to threads, you're
Speaker 1: Crumbler on Instagram, and you said, at some point, I
Speaker 1: wish that maybe I would have thought about that a
Speaker 1: little bit more so the username or the username comes over.
Speaker 1: You've been very active on threads since it started, So
Speaker 1: tell me what your impressions are of it. What do
Speaker 1: you think.
Speaker 9: Well, you know, one thing that I think is interesting
Speaker 9: about it is, particularly for those first couple of days,
Speaker 9: if you posted anything, there was a good chance that
Speaker 9: it would show up essentially in the feed that everyone
Speaker 9: was looking at. So imagine being able to post directly
Speaker 9: to the for you page on TikTok and just have
Speaker 9: kind of the whole world seeing what you were doing,
Speaker 9: even if they didn't follow you. That was kind of
Speaker 9: the experience. And so you know, TikTok, I'm sorry. Threads
Speaker 9: by default will sort of buzz your phone every time
Speaker 9: you get a like or a reply or a mention,
Speaker 9: and so I would post something on threads in those
Speaker 9: first couple of days and my phone was just like shaking,
Speaker 9: like it was.
Speaker 2: Having a nervous breakdown or something.
Speaker 9: I mean, everything was going bananas, and you know, of
Speaker 9: course I do feel silly about it, but at the
Speaker 9: end of the day, I think we all do get
Speaker 9: a seratonin hit when you publish something on a network
Speaker 9: like this and you know a lot of people start
Speaker 9: to like it. So there was absolutely something addictive just
Speaker 9: about posting thinking like, hey, you know, I mean, you know,
Speaker 9: not to brag rich, but I posted something a couple
Speaker 9: of days ago and like Sarah Jessica Parker was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 9: this is interesting.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I love your podcast.
Speaker 9: I was like, that is like beyond my wildest dreams
Speaker 9: of anything that would ever happen to me on a
Speaker 9: social network.
Speaker 2: So made me very pro Threads.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's wild. Yes, that is that is exciting if
Speaker 1: you get that kind of comment. It's funny because I
Speaker 1: kept looking at people who are commenting on my stuff
Speaker 1: and I was like, wait, do I know this person?
Speaker 1: Do I follow them? Because I guess what you're saying
Speaker 1: is what happened to me is that some of my
Speaker 1: posts might have gotten into like other people's feeds, and
Speaker 1: that is actually one and we're gonna leave it at this,
Speaker 1: but that's one of the things that people are saying
Speaker 1: to me, like, Rich, I don't know if I like
Speaker 1: this because I'm getting other people's stuff in my feed.
Speaker 1: What do you say to that. I mean, is that
Speaker 1: a problem or should we be exposed to other things?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 9: I mean I think eventually they will probably roll out
Speaker 9: away for you to see only posts from people that
Speaker 9: you're following.
Speaker 2: I think that'll be a good thing. But I think,
Speaker 2: you know, the first.
Speaker 9: Job that every new social network has is to just
Speaker 9: convince you that enough is going on there that you
Speaker 9: should bother to pay attention to it. And if it
Speaker 9: had to rely on you to go follow a bunch
Speaker 9: of people that were very active and interesting, odds are
Speaker 9: you wouldn't find it very interesting. So I think it's
Speaker 9: smart to show you a bunch of stuff from people
Speaker 9: that you don't follow. And of course, you know, if
Speaker 9: you see anything you don't like, just mute it and
Speaker 9: hopefully your feet will get better.
Speaker 1: All right, Casey Newton from Platformer dot News. Sign up
Speaker 1: for the newsletter, uh and of course find you on
Speaker 1: threads at crumbler.
Speaker 2: Right. That's right, Thanks so much, Rich, All.
Speaker 1: Right, thanks for joining me today. Coming up more of
Speaker 1: your calls at triple A Rich one oh one, that's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one
Speaker 1: zero one. If you have a question about threads, give
Speaker 1: me a call. What do you want to know about it?
Speaker 1: What do you think of it? Are you going to
Speaker 1: switch over? I'm open. This is an open conversation. You
Speaker 1: are listening to Rich on tech. Tim is in more Park, Tim,
Speaker 1: You're on with Rich.
Speaker 8: A defuctive spectrum modem. Burn my knees, my legs while
Speaker 8: I slip in a bud that was on the other
Speaker 8: side of the whap from the defective from modem. I
Speaker 8: asked the all I threw d in the bed about
Speaker 8: five different days, about eight hours each day. When I
Speaker 8: each day, when I woke up after the eight hours,
Speaker 8: my knees were on fire. They were burning inside. When
Speaker 8: they weren't hot, they were burning inside and it was
Speaker 8: hard to walk.
Speaker 1: Well I would have I would have stopped sleeping in
Speaker 1: the bed after the first day. Why'd you go eight days?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I would return the modem, get rid
Speaker 1: of the modem. If it's that hot, I don't know
Speaker 1: what it's doing to go through your wall, but that
Speaker 1: is I know these things get hot. That's for sure,
Speaker 1: and it's actually a good lesson to learn is that
Speaker 1: you probably don't want to put these modems inside an
Speaker 1: enclosed container. So these modems, if you look at them,
Speaker 1: they've got a lot of breathing areas on them because
Speaker 1: they can get hot. That you know, it's it's traveling.
Speaker 1: A lot of Internet is traveling through those pipes. So
Speaker 1: when you are setting up your modem, you definitely want
Speaker 1: to put it in a place that is open on
Speaker 1: all sides. A lot of people will put these things
Speaker 1: in a drawer, they'll put them in a cabinet, they'll
Speaker 1: put them behind a TV, which is also putting out
Speaker 1: some of that heat. But tim definitely get professional help
Speaker 1: if you are in fact, you know, if this is
Speaker 1: a something that burns you for you know, more than
Speaker 1: just a day or two. But after the first day,
Speaker 1: why would you sleep in the same bed. I mean,
Speaker 1: if this thing is doing this over and over, day
Speaker 1: after day, night after night, you got you gotta nip
Speaker 1: it in the butt, unplugged that thing and get rid
Speaker 1: of it. They do have some spectrum stores. Maybe just
Speaker 1: bring it into one of those and see what you
Speaker 1: you know, if they can get you a new one.
Speaker 1: But yeah, again, the lesson learned here and I hope
Speaker 1: you're okay, Tim, is that don't put these things well,
Speaker 1: first off, don't let it happen more than once. And
Speaker 1: second off, don't put these things in a enclosed area
Speaker 1: because they can get hot. And we don't hear a
Speaker 1: lot of stories like that, but for sure things can happen,
Speaker 1: so good thing to be aware of, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Let's see, Oh did you see Thanks for the call.
Speaker 1: By the way, did you see this sphere? This thing
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas which I actually had the ability to
Speaker 1: visit last year and while they're building it. It's the
Speaker 1: world's largest LED screen, five hundred and eighty thousand square
Speaker 1: feet of fully programmable LED lighting. They lit it up
Speaker 1: for the first time on July fourth, and it's called
Speaker 1: the Sphere sph E r E Sphere Las Vegas. You
Speaker 1: gotta look up the video on this I've got on
Speaker 1: my Instagram at rich On Tech. They can basically make
Speaker 1: this thing look like a giant moon, a giant fireworks show.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not kidding. When Aliens and UFO see
Speaker 1: this thing from space, they are going to want to
Speaker 1: phone home because they're going to be like, I want
Speaker 1: to see what that is. They're gonna come in close
Speaker 1: and land. This is like an alien beacon in our
Speaker 1: sky in Las Vegas. It is so big. But I
Speaker 1: had the ability to go inside last year while they
Speaker 1: were building it, and it is quite impressive. It's a
Speaker 1: giant sphere. They're gonna do like concerts and shows inside.
Speaker 1: It's a little too small for a sports arena inside,
Speaker 1: but it is quite incredible. So look it up. Go
Speaker 1: to my Instagram at rich on Tech. Check out the
Speaker 1: video of this sphere being lit up for the very
Speaker 1: first time. All right, more of your calls at Triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one on one. Give me a call at
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Let's talk tech. Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology at Triple eight rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four to one zero one. This hour, we will talk
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime Day deals. Jacob Palmer of the website Best
Speaker 1: Reviews dot com. We'll join to talk what you need
Speaker 1: to know, what's different, what's new, what to look for,
Speaker 1: and what people are buying on Prime Day, which happens
Speaker 1: on the eleventh and twelfth this year July eleventh and twelfth,
Speaker 1: so it is right around the corner also this week.
Speaker 1: Since I keep you up to date on all the
Speaker 1: movies I watch, I can't believe I was so late
Speaker 1: to this one, but I did watch the sci fi
Speaker 1: horror thriller movie Megan. I just realized it's actually spelled
Speaker 1: with a three in her name, Megan m three gam.
Speaker 1: So this was on my list for a long time
Speaker 1: and then I forgot about it. It got all the buzz,
Speaker 1: and then I was flipping through Amazon Prime and I
Speaker 1: saw that it was on there for free if you
Speaker 1: know you're an Amazon Prime member, and I watched it
Speaker 1: and it was It was so great. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you like a campy horror movie, sci fi especially. It's
Speaker 1: funny because this movie was right before all the AI
Speaker 1: stuff took off, and so it's like nowadays, if they
Speaker 1: made the same exact movie, like even a year later,
Speaker 1: it would be all about AI and chatchypt. But it
Speaker 1: was right before that. But it was still really really good.
Speaker 1: It's about this doll that sort of comes to life,
Speaker 1: has a mind of her own, not like in the
Speaker 1: Chucky style, similar but just more modern. Anyway, if you
Speaker 1: like a campy horror movie that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Speaker 1: Check it out. Let's go to Reggie in Charleston, South Carolina. Reggie,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Hey, Rich, I think I may have done something very
Speaker 4: terrible today. But maybe you can tell me that I'm
Speaker 4: okay and I will not lose my house tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Oh no, well, let's hear what she did. What happened? Reggie?
Speaker 4: Okay, I have a small business. I do custom home
Speaker 4: and PEP portraits.
Speaker 1: Oh that's fun.
Speaker 4: Yes, And I advertise on Facebook and this morning I
Speaker 4: received a message from them telling me that I perhaps
Speaker 4: was using my accounts fraudulently and that it really wasn't me.
Speaker 1: You got an email or a notification? How did that
Speaker 1: come out?
Speaker 4: It was a notification through Facebook? Okay, So they asked
Speaker 4: me to send a photograph of my driver's license and
Speaker 4: I did. Am I in trouble? I mean? Have I
Speaker 4: gotten scammed? Or is this? And I haven't heard another
Speaker 4: single thing. I checked my advertising. Everything is still good.
Speaker 4: But I'm just wondering if it was a scam and
Speaker 4: I just sent my driver's license information to some weird person.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, how did you send this driver's license.
Speaker 4: I sent it to the email that they sent me.
Speaker 4: I just forwarded it. It looked said it was from
Speaker 4: Meta and so they had a link and said just
Speaker 4: upload the picture. And I uploaded the picture.
Speaker 1: And I sent can you tell me the email address? Like,
Speaker 1: what is the domain of the email address?
Speaker 4: So there was no real domain. It just came up
Speaker 4: on my Facebook information.
Speaker 1: Okay, So it came up on your Facebook as a
Speaker 1: notification and you click the notification and then but if
Speaker 1: you're emailing the driver's license, you had to send it
Speaker 1: to some sort of address. Can you check in your
Speaker 1: sent email or was it sent through your Facebook messages?
Speaker 4: Yes, it was sent through my Facebook messages. And now
Speaker 4: I can't seem to go back and find it.
Speaker 1: Okay. So that so now here's the thing. There's a
Speaker 1: couple of things going on. Number One, there are many
Speaker 1: many scams that happen on Facebook that involve fraudulent activity.
Speaker 1: They say, oh, your account's been flagged, you have fraudulent activity.
Speaker 1: You need to do this. I get. And what they
Speaker 1: do is they actually tag you in sort of a page.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they'll say your page has been flagged. And I
Speaker 1: get these all the time on my Facebook like almost
Speaker 1: on a daily basi, and so yes, I would say
Speaker 1: for the most part, ignore them. Number two the Facebook.
Speaker 1: Now here's the interesting part, and this is what scam
Speaker 1: artists specialize in. They try to do things that are
Speaker 1: very similar to what you actually have to do. Now. Facebook,
Speaker 1: if you are hacked, many times they will ask you
Speaker 1: to submit a driver's license because they want to verify
Speaker 1: you are who you say they are. But when I've
Speaker 1: seen that happen, it's not an email. They actually will
Speaker 1: have you hold your driver's license in front of your
Speaker 1: webcam and it will scan it that way. Now I'm
Speaker 1: a little concerned, Reggie that you sent your driver's license
Speaker 1: because it may be in the hands of someone that
Speaker 1: should not have it. So here's what I think you
Speaker 1: need to do. Number one, do you have two factor
Speaker 1: authentication set up on your Facebook account?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, that's the number one thing you need to do
Speaker 1: right now. I would go through and set that up
Speaker 1: right now. So if you just go to Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash security, that's the first thing you want to
Speaker 1: do is make sure you set it up. If you
Speaker 1: are operating a business on your Facebook page, you have
Speaker 1: to do that. Facebook dot Com let's see here, I
Speaker 1: want to make sure I get this email address right.
Speaker 1: Facebook two factor authentication, so just actually just google that
Speaker 1: and just say you go to your security and login settings,
Speaker 1: so there's like a little there's a little you know,
Speaker 1: just it's face. Sorry, it's Facebook dot com, slash settings
Speaker 1: and look for security. So that's where you want to go.
Speaker 1: That's the number one thing I would do. Number two
Speaker 1: I would anytime you get an alert like this, you
Speaker 1: really have to scrutinize it. You weren't doing anything wrong
Speaker 1: on Facebook. You probably haven't done anything that is a problem,
Speaker 1: and so I think that you have to be just
Speaker 1: skeptical of anytime someone's saying, hey, you know, you're doing
Speaker 1: something illegal or wrong, you'd have to be like, wait
Speaker 1: a second, what, I don't know if that was that's
Speaker 1: me or not? Right.
Speaker 4: Well, the thing is rich they blocked me one time
Speaker 4: because they thought I was trying to sell pets.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, now that's another Okay, now that does make
Speaker 1: some more sense. That could be. Yeah. Now, I've have
Speaker 1: heard stories about Facebook, especially Marketplace, will block people based
Speaker 1: on selling you know, inauthentic goods or of course, pets
Speaker 1: is a huge thing online. Right now where people are
Speaker 1: scamming people with pets. So now I'm just curious when
Speaker 1: you submitted this ID. Was the process? Was it through
Speaker 1: your phone? Was it through a desktop?
Speaker 4: It was my iPad? On everything on my iPad?
Speaker 1: And how did you scan your ID? Did you take
Speaker 1: a picture of it?
Speaker 4: I just took a picture of it. They actually had
Speaker 4: the link and just said press here and send a picture.
Speaker 4: And they said either you know, if they don't ask
Speaker 4: for my credit card, I never would have given it.
Speaker 1: Through yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 4: Then asking for my identification. I was so afraid that
Speaker 4: they were going to shut me off again because it
Speaker 4: took me a long time to prove to Facebook that
Speaker 4: I was doing pet portraits.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't know.
Speaker 4: That might be a good thing because my pet portraits
Speaker 4: are pretty good, and they thought I was selling pets,
Speaker 4: and so that's what I was afraid was happening again.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, it sounds like this actually could be legitimate
Speaker 1: if it came through a notification, and it seemed like
Speaker 1: it was a legitimate kind of activity through there. But
Speaker 1: I think that the bigger question is, you know, you
Speaker 1: have to be very critical of these notifications, and it
Speaker 1: didn't come through an email you said, right, No, it did.
Speaker 4: Not come through many I would have been more concerned.
Speaker 4: It came right through my Facebook page.
Speaker 1: Right. But here's the thing. So, and that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: mean that it's legitimate, but it means that it you know,
Speaker 1: these scam artists have found ways of getting around all
Speaker 1: of the different policies in place by all of these
Speaker 1: social networks, and believe me, they will try. Now, the
Speaker 1: good news is it's your ID, so it's not your
Speaker 1: credit card. I'm not sure what they could do with
Speaker 1: this ID. I don't think they I don't think someone
Speaker 1: should have it that shouldn't. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's your ID. You know, you have to show your
Speaker 1: idea at the grocery store. Sometimes they take a scan
Speaker 1: of it, you know.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: You know, what could they do with that if this
Speaker 1: was fraudulent. Most of the time, if it's a fraudulent activity,
Speaker 1: they want your credit card information, your bank account information.
Speaker 1: They want you to send, you know, some sort of
Speaker 1: gift card or cash or whatever, or a wire service.
Speaker 1: So I think you might be okay, But Reggie, I
Speaker 1: would just in the future be very cautious and maybe
Speaker 1: wait for the second time you get an alert if
Speaker 1: if that's the case, And did you get any sort
Speaker 1: of confirmation through your email that you did this?
Speaker 4: No, I got I got nothing, no confirmation. I've received
Speaker 4: nothing from them since I did it. Of course, my
Speaker 4: husband's been yelling at me everything.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that doesn't take much us husbands. Sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: it happens. But here's the thing. I would next time
Speaker 1: take a screenshot before you do anything in that way
Speaker 1: if there if there comes to be a question, right
Speaker 1: at least you know, like hey, like if I'm asking you,
Speaker 1: like if you call me again and say I did this,
Speaker 1: I can say, hey, what would what did it say? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Because a lot of times we do these things so
Speaker 1: fast that we forget exactly what it said. You forget
Speaker 1: it a Was it an official Facebook page? Was it
Speaker 1: an official logo? So a screenshot can help. And on
Speaker 1: the iPhone, you take a screenshot by pressing the side
Speaker 1: button and the up button. On the androids it's the
Speaker 1: power button plus the down button. So just remember that
Speaker 1: for future reference. But Reggie, I think you're gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: I would just be on the lookout for anything unusual
Speaker 1: on your account, and I would definitely set up that
Speaker 1: two two factor authentication as soon as you can. The
Speaker 1: other thing I would look at right now is on
Speaker 1: that Facebook dot Com slash settings, go to that security
Speaker 1: tab and just see where it says you're logged in.
Speaker 1: If you're logged in on any places that you don't
Speaker 1: recogn just get rid of those places or log out
Speaker 1: of all sessions and log in again. And I'm looking
Speaker 1: at mine. I've got a ton of logins I need
Speaker 1: to clean up as well. Thanks for the call, Reggie,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, by bye. All right, Yeah, just be
Speaker 1: aware of these things. That's I think the biggest thing
Speaker 1: is is just to really be critical of any notification
Speaker 1: or email you're getting. Be critical of the source, look
Speaker 1: at where it's coming from, think about what it's asking
Speaker 1: you to do, and understand why is it asking me
Speaker 1: to do this? And in Reggie's case, she did it
Speaker 1: really fast because she wanted to be on the good
Speaker 1: side of Facebook. And that's what they're praying upon. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that we know this is a scam for sure,
Speaker 1: but that's what they pray upon. They pray upon us
Speaker 1: doing things really fast, really quick, just to get things
Speaker 1: back to normal. All right, Coming up if you have
Speaker 1: a call, give me or if you have a question,
Speaker 1: give me a call at Triple eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. You can also email hello at Richontech
Speaker 1: dot tv.
Speaker 11: Coming up.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what to do if you lose an
Speaker 1: air tech the number one thing you need to do immediately.
Speaker 1: You are listening to rich on Tech Triple eight rich
Speaker 1: one on one eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. Mark is in Los Angeles, Mark,
Speaker 1: what's up?
Speaker 12: Hey?
Speaker 3: How you doing? I'm turning on my radio. Hey, I
Speaker 3: got a challenge here for you.
Speaker 1: Man, challenge? Uh oh, what is like a TikTok challenge?
Speaker 3: No no, no, no no no, no kicktok. That's Spear
Speaker 3: in Las Vegas, right, sure, it just it just opened
Speaker 3: on July twenty, well, the fourth of julyfe yes. My
Speaker 3: question is who do you think is going to open that? Saying, man,
Speaker 3: it's like a seventeen seventeen thousand people, eighteen thousand maybe arena.
Speaker 3: My guess is going to be swift, and I'm no swifty,
Speaker 3: but I like to put it out there in Vegas Land.
Speaker 3: There's gonna be a bit for this one. Well, it's
Speaker 3: going to open.
Speaker 1: There would be. Now have you seen this thing in
Speaker 1: person yet?
Speaker 3: No, I've seen it only online.
Speaker 1: And you saw the video.
Speaker 3: I guess is that somebody's going to open there.
Speaker 1: Well I can. Yeah, it's it's it's quite incredible. And
Speaker 1: I was inside before it opened and it's it's big.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing that's that's really odd about it.
Speaker 1: They built it where you can't have like a football
Speaker 1: game in there because it's too small inside.
Speaker 3: No I'm not talking about football. No, I know it's
Speaker 3: set up for a concerts, yes, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and here's the thing. There's also speakers in there
Speaker 1: that beam. They have like beam forming speakers, so they
Speaker 1: literally beam sound. They can beam sounds to your specific seat.
Speaker 10: It is.
Speaker 1: It's quite incredible the technology they built in. Now here's
Speaker 1: the thing. I already know who the people are going
Speaker 1: to be that that are going to open this up
Speaker 1: because they've said it. They just announced it. So here's
Speaker 1: the opening. And Adam, does your mic work yet? Or no?
Speaker 1: Now okay, Adam producer Adam here, his mike doesn't work.
Speaker 1: He knows how to say this? Octun you too will
Speaker 1: open this in September, you v Octune Baby Live at Sphere.
Speaker 1: Sphere is a really tough word to say. I don't
Speaker 1: like it. I don't like Sphere. It's too like, it's
Speaker 1: too spheary. The first Sphere experience will be Postcard from Earth,
Speaker 1: directed by Darren Arons Aaron Osky. This, let me just
Speaker 1: stumble through this part of the show. In October, that's
Speaker 1: when that's gonna happen. Then in November, during the Formula
Speaker 1: one Las Vegas Grand Prix. No, I'm just kidding, I
Speaker 1: know that one Grand Prix, Sphere will have a prime
Speaker 1: position along the circuit to showcase the Exosphere to a
Speaker 1: global audience in person and on TV. They'll have planned
Speaker 1: takeovers of the Exosphere for race related content, activations, and advertising.
Speaker 1: It's also gonna display a wide range of artistic and
Speaker 1: branded content daily from rituals such as Sunrise and Sunset whatever. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is all their stuff anyway, So we know, so
Speaker 1: you two, Then we've got Postcard from Earth, and then
Speaker 1: we've got the Formula one Grand Prix, And so the
Speaker 1: Grand Prix is not gonna go inside, but it's gonna
Speaker 1: be around it. So I think Taylor Swift eventually would
Speaker 1: probably like to sell out that space. This is also owned,
Speaker 1: by the way, by MSG Madison Square Garden. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they go by that anymore, but
Speaker 1: they owned the Forum in Los Angeles. Well actually do
Speaker 1: they still? They might not MSG the Forum. It's the
Speaker 1: key oh Clippers, Yeah, they purchased it. Okay, so the Clippers. Okay, anyway,
Speaker 1: disregard that part. I think MSG owned it for a
Speaker 1: little bit. But they own you know, Madison Square Garden
Speaker 1: in New York City. And of course now this sphere.
Speaker 1: So and they also have in Los Angeles in Burbank
Speaker 1: by the airport, they've got a mini sphere where they're
Speaker 1: taking like creative types in Hollywood to do some of
Speaker 1: the programming, to like experience some of it on a
Speaker 1: small scale, so like people can figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: what they can do with this stuff. All right, good question, Mark,
Speaker 1: But we know the answer to that one, okay. So
Speaker 1: I said before the break that I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you what to do if you lose an air tag.
Speaker 1: So I had someone from my work, a colleague, come
Speaker 1: up to me and he said, Rich, we found a
Speaker 1: cat and it had an air tag on it. What
Speaker 1: do I do. We scanned it and it doesn't have
Speaker 1: any information. It has a serial number and the phone
Speaker 1: numbers blocked out, and I said, yes, the person that
Speaker 1: lost this cat needs to mark this air tag is lost.
Speaker 1: So if you lose an air tag, the first thing
Speaker 1: you need to do is go into your app on
Speaker 1: your iPhone called find My Okay. You open it up,
Speaker 1: you go to your items, You tap it and it
Speaker 1: says lost mode. You tap lost mode, which I already
Speaker 1: have a name for one of mine. But when you
Speaker 1: tap lost mode, you can put in your phone number
Speaker 1: and a message. Put in that information as soon as possible.
Speaker 1: Otherwise someone will find this air tag and they can't
Speaker 1: do anything with it. So they if you have an
Speaker 1: air tag on your pet and someone finds it, unless
Speaker 1: you mark it as lost mode, they will not be
Speaker 1: able to do anything with it. If you find an
Speaker 1: air tag, you tap your phone to the top of
Speaker 1: it to bring up the information on that air tag.
Speaker 1: It's got NFC inside. Do that first. You're listening to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech Prime Day coming up next, Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with
Speaker 1: you talking technology and joining me now is Jacob Palmer
Speaker 1: of Best Reviews dot Com. Jacob, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining me.
Speaker 11: Thanks thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: All Right, So Amazon Prime Day is happening this year
Speaker 1: starting July eleventh at three am Eastern. Prime members will
Speaker 1: have forty eight hours to get some deals. Amazon is
Speaker 1: promising more deals than any past Prime Day. Yeah, do
Speaker 1: we agree with that?
Speaker 11: Yeah? I definitely think that that's going to be the case.
Speaker 11: Are you going to see anything groundbreaking and completely new
Speaker 11: and fresh? I mean, that's going to be remained to
Speaker 11: be seen. But they're getting more brands, they're getting more
Speaker 11: people bought in on it. They're just making the event
Speaker 11: bigger every year. So I have no reason to doubt
Speaker 11: Amazon on that one whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Okay, so tell me what you do at Best Reviews.
Speaker 11: At Best Reviews, we do product recommendations for people to
Speaker 11: make sure that they're purchasing process is as simple as possible.
Speaker 11: So we do the testing, We consult with experts. We
Speaker 11: make sure that everybody has all the information they need
Speaker 11: to make sure they're not wasting their money.
Speaker 1: All right, And I should mention that Best Reviews is
Speaker 1: owned by Nextstar, the TV company that I also work for.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Prime Day twenty twenty three. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every year, Amazon sort of promises bigger and better, but
Speaker 1: the bottom line remains, people shop a lot on this day,
Speaker 1: but it's not their biggest shopping day of the year.
Speaker 2: That's correct.
Speaker 11: So basically, when you look at the shopping calendar, the
Speaker 11: biggest days are going to be the ones you'd expect.
Speaker 11: It's gonna be Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Usually Cyber
Speaker 11: Monday is a little bit bigger than Black Friday. But
Speaker 11: then I mean when it comes to Amazon and what
Speaker 11: they're looking at, Prime Day is right after those that
Speaker 11: big Thanksgiving weekend, So it's the biggest shopping event during
Speaker 11: the summer. And what we've been seeing is is that
Speaker 11: Amazon is leading the way on making it a shopping
Speaker 11: event across the board. So other retailers are getting involved.
Speaker 11: They're trying to price match, they're trying to get as
Speaker 11: much of the tailwind as they can out of this
Speaker 11: event that Amazon is basically just created out of thin air,
Speaker 11: you know, a little bit less than ten years ago.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting that you mentioned the other retailers. So
Speaker 1: many of us are Amazon centric. If you have that
Speaker 1: Prime membership, and I'm sure the numbers show this, you
Speaker 1: probably only go to Amazon when you're shopping online. For
Speaker 1: the most part, should we be cross checking prices anywhere
Speaker 1: else or does Amazon do that for us?
Speaker 11: Amazon does it for you? To be straight to be
Speaker 11: straightforward with you, There's people that have their own personal preferences,
Speaker 11: you know, maybe they have a rewards card or something.
Speaker 11: But for the most part, at Best of Youse, we're
Speaker 11: looking for the ideal customer experience. And what does that mean.
Speaker 11: It means the lowest price possible. It means the fastest shipping,
Speaker 11: and it means no hidden costs, and so really when
Speaker 11: you boil it down to that, Amazon's gonna win most
Speaker 11: of the time. So even though you're going to see
Speaker 11: different retailers doing price matching, it's going to be pretty
Speaker 11: rare for them to be beating the price. What I
Speaker 11: will say though, is especially over Prime Day, what we're
Speaker 11: looking out for is Walmart will usually pick a few items,
Speaker 11: same with Best Buy, that they will make a huge
Speaker 11: deal out of and say, you're not finding these deals
Speaker 11: anywhere else. But at the end of the day, even
Speaker 11: though they're rolling those out and they are huge deals.
Speaker 11: Amazon is a little bit tricky in terms of just
Speaker 11: price matching and saying, you know, bringing the people back
Speaker 11: to their site. That's kind of their mo as they're
Speaker 11: always finding a way to bring people back to their site.
Speaker 1: It is interesting whenever I look at another price somewhere else,
Speaker 1: I'm always googling to say what the return policy is.
Speaker 1: And even if I shop in a store, like if
Speaker 1: I'm at the mall and I'm buying something at a
Speaker 1: store I haven't shopped at, or even I have shopped at,
Speaker 1: I will always ask at the checkout what is the
Speaker 1: return policy, just to keep that fresh in my head,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, even H and M Clothing Company
Speaker 1: or Best Buy. You know, because sometimes they change it.
Speaker 1: You think thirty days as a standard, it may not
Speaker 1: be maybe fourteen.
Speaker 11: You know, it is a big thing. Amazon made news
Speaker 11: for changing their return policy recently, but even with that
Speaker 11: in mind, they still have one of the better return
Speaker 11: policies that you'll find out there the in store places.
Speaker 11: Because of how hard it's been to get customers into
Speaker 11: retail space, they have been a little bit better, but
Speaker 11: you know, Amazon used to be the absolute world leader
Speaker 11: in terms of no questions asked, you can return. They've
Speaker 11: tightened it up to an extent, but in terms of
Speaker 11: that online only storefront, they're still the best, but you
Speaker 11: can find some pretty solid return policies in store, or
Speaker 11: just because of how badly the best buys the targets,
Speaker 11: the walmarts want you to come through their doors.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of the deals that Amazon doesn't
Speaker 1: really tell you every deal in advance, which makes it tough.
Speaker 1: But they're promoting seventy five up to seventy five percent
Speaker 1: off of select Amazon devices, which of course includes TVs,
Speaker 1: Fire TV sticks, the Echo shows, the Ring cameras, and
Speaker 1: TCL smart TVs, also kindlescribe, and it's interesting they're mentioning
Speaker 1: that their brand new Firemax eleven tablet will be discounted,
Speaker 1: which is pretty rare because that's a brand new product.
Speaker 1: And then of course they go into all of the
Speaker 1: different apparel, the Amazon exclusive clothing, Sony headphones, eye Robot, Bissel, toys, dolls,
Speaker 1: so basically everything. And I always say with people on
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime Day, if what you're looking for is on sale,
Speaker 1: it's a good day.
Speaker 11: Yeah, And that's basically how it goes. And you know,
Speaker 11: I think when you look at that Amazon list of products,
Speaker 11: there's ones that I would love to advise people to get.
Speaker 11: You know, the ring doorbells are fantastic. They test among
Speaker 11: the absolute best. You know, I robot is always solid.
Speaker 11: They aren't exactly an Amazon brand quite yet. They probably
Speaker 11: will be very soon, but not quite yet. Those are
Speaker 11: some of the best out of the ones you've listed
Speaker 11: in terms of areas where I would advise people to
Speaker 11: maybe shop around and reconsider. The Amazon fire TVs are
Speaker 11: you know, they're really solid. You get a huge bang
Speaker 11: for the buck. They're not going to last as long
Speaker 11: as a Samsung would or you know, a Sony something
Speaker 11: like that. So in our testing lab we did have
Speaker 11: a lot of complaints around that. So you need to
Speaker 11: kind of know which ones are worth looking at and
Speaker 11: which ones aren't. And I would say there's a lot
Speaker 11: of Amazon products that are at some of our absolute favors.
Speaker 11: The kin describe that you mentioned is another one that
Speaker 11: we had a college student test and they were just
Speaker 11: enamored with it. They thought it was fantastic. So there's
Speaker 11: a lot of really great ones, and you want to
Speaker 11: make sure that you're looking out for, you know, those
Speaker 11: really solid top of the line products, which they have
Speaker 11: a lot of. But that's one of the things about
Speaker 11: when you talk about it getting bigger, you talk about
Speaker 11: them selling absolutely everything that's true to the extent that
Speaker 11: you want to be able to cut through the noise
Speaker 11: and get the best products out of that huge mass,
Speaker 11: because it can be kind of tricky with how they're
Speaker 11: coming and going, how it's basically everything. How do you
Speaker 11: know is it a good day for me? Even though
Speaker 11: I've been wanting this thing? And that's where you know,
Speaker 11: I think Best Reviews provides a lot of value for
Speaker 11: people because we cut through that noise and can provide
Speaker 11: you with that perspective that we get from testing these
Speaker 11: things in our lab.
Speaker 1: Give me a little perspective on how you test things.
Speaker 11: Yeah, we love to go side by side. So you
Speaker 11: know a recent one that we really did a deep
Speaker 11: dive onto the robot vacuums and we got models from
Speaker 11: I Robot, Ufie, Shark, Robo Rock, you know, kind of
Speaker 11: across the board, and then we will put them into
Speaker 11: real life scenarios. But we try to do that with
Speaker 11: a scientific spin on it. What we really advise people
Speaker 11: to do is if you have that one thing in
Speaker 11: your head. So our company started because our founder needed
Speaker 11: a cordless d We say go to Best Reviews dot
Speaker 11: Com and search for a cordless drill, and you're gonna
Speaker 11: find our testing results. You're gonna find how we looked
Speaker 11: at it. You're gonna find all the models we looked at.
Speaker 11: And at the end of the day, we lay it
Speaker 11: out for you in a very simple way where five
Speaker 11: are across. Because the best of the best isn't for
Speaker 11: everybody all the time, We're also gonna tell you this
Speaker 11: is the best for a beginner, this is the best
Speaker 11: for an expert, and so on. So we lay it
Speaker 11: out for you to be as simple as possible, and
Speaker 11: so you're not wasting your time just scrolling and then
Speaker 11: eventually giving up. And now a week later we needed
Speaker 11: that cordless drill. You remember, oh I didn't even buy
Speaker 11: that cordless drill.
Speaker 1: And my advice every year, and you may show this
Speaker 1: advice is to put the stuff in your cart that
Speaker 1: you want now.
Speaker 11: Yeah, And that's the best way to do it. And
Speaker 11: what I always say is number one, go to Best
Speaker 11: Reviews dot Com, slash Prime. But then when you're looking
Speaker 11: through and you're seeing what we're recommending, especially with the
Speaker 11: early deals, those are good deals, but a lot of
Speaker 11: the times they kind of ratchet it up during the
Speaker 11: event and they'll be a little bit even more discounted.
Speaker 11: And so that's why it's important that you put it
Speaker 11: in your cart, because you put it in your cart,
Speaker 11: and then on the day of the event, you can
Speaker 11: check back in your cart and see exactly how much
Speaker 11: it's off. You know, I've said it to you Rich
Speaker 11: a few times, but Best review is what we're looking for.
Speaker 11: Twenty to twenty five percent offer more is what we
Speaker 11: determined to be a good deal, especially as it's more expensive.
Speaker 11: You know, a cheaper item, you want to see that
Speaker 11: forty fifty percent off. But when you're looking for electronics
Speaker 11: twenty five, you know, thirty percent off or more. That's
Speaker 11: usually what you want to jump at. And like I
Speaker 11: said earlier, prices are going up and down, availability is
Speaker 11: going in and out. You want to be checking in
Speaker 11: and by putting things in your cart early and then
Speaker 11: checking back, it gives you that tool and it kind
Speaker 11: of pays off for that little bit of preparation that
Speaker 11: you do.
Speaker 1: All right, Jacob Palmer of Best Reviews dot Com, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: All right, Happy Prime Day. I never thought I would
Speaker 1: say that, But there you go. More rich on Tech
Speaker 1: coming your way. Give me a call if you have
Speaker 1: a question about technology at Triple eight Rich one on one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. Rich tomorrow here rich on Tech talking
Speaker 1: technology with you at Triple eight Rich one O one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four to one
Speaker 1: zero one. Paul is in Columbus, Ohio. Paul, you're on
Speaker 1: with Rich. Welcome to the show. I'm doing fantastic. You know,
Speaker 1: I thought I might retire in Columbus at some point
Speaker 1: in my uh when I was younger. I thought that
Speaker 1: I would make it to Columbus in my TV career
Speaker 1: and that's where I was going to work forever.
Speaker 7: Oh okay, well that's a good city for that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's got some family there. It's a great little place.
Speaker 1: So what's up today?
Speaker 5: Okay, I've got actually two of the older buyer TV
Speaker 5: two's got one first generation in a second generation I
Speaker 5: lived after a few years, they've come out with the third.
Speaker 7: Well of them. I'm visually impaired, which makes at was
Speaker 7: difficult to do stuff sometimes. So most of the stuff
Speaker 7: you can do in voice.
Speaker 1: Control and are fantastic for that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, so my question is if I get a
Speaker 7: new one, am I gonna have to reload all the passwords,
Speaker 7: sort of apps and all that stuff settings or canny
Speaker 7: that get transferred over.
Speaker 1: That's a great question. I know that the apps will
Speaker 1: get transferred over. They don't necessarily download, but they'll be
Speaker 1: there and you just one click. But the log ins themselves.
Speaker 1: As far as I know, and I've logged into a
Speaker 1: bunch of these, I actually have the firetvqube the latest one,
Speaker 1: which is great. By the way, I've not seen a
Speaker 1: scenario where they log into the apps. So the only
Speaker 1: password that I am aware of that the fire TV
Speaker 1: can save to your Amazon account at this point is
Speaker 1: your Wi Fi password, so it can do that. But otherwise,
Speaker 1: once you log in, it's gonna it's gonna give you
Speaker 1: the app, it's gonna present the apps that you have
Speaker 1: in your library, but you will have to log into
Speaker 1: those apps again. Does that present kind of a challenge
Speaker 1: or an issue?
Speaker 7: I can get some assistance, but the problem is they're
Speaker 7: all kind of spread out in different places. I've got
Speaker 7: to get a consolidated list you have them all together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely it's not ideal, but I will tell
Speaker 1: you this, Paul, the majority of the mainstream apps have
Speaker 1: gotten a lot easier with logins. Now imagine I test
Speaker 1: this stuff for a living, like every day I'm logging
Speaker 1: into something, and the biggest apps they've done a couple
Speaker 1: of things. Number One, they have a QR code on
Speaker 1: the screen. So there's three ways to sort of log in.
Speaker 1: The old way, which is just the most annoying way,
Speaker 1: which is just hey, type in your password and use
Speaker 1: your name, and that's really annoying on a TV screen
Speaker 1: because you're flipping through letter by letter. You can download
Speaker 1: the Amazon Fire TV app to your phone, so at
Speaker 1: least you have the keyboard on your phone to help
Speaker 1: you log in that way. That's the first way, that's
Speaker 1: the most annoying. The second way is the QR code,
Speaker 1: and this I've seen more and more where you will
Speaker 1: scan a QR code on your screen with your phone
Speaker 1: and in some cases it'll link up your account either
Speaker 1: through the app or you can log in on your phone,
Speaker 1: which is easier to manipulate than the on screen typing.
Speaker 1: And then the third way, which is the absolute easiest way,
Speaker 1: and I've only seen this on the Disney app, and
Speaker 1: I believe it was, oh maybe the new the Max app,
Speaker 1: where all you have to do is be on the
Speaker 1: same Wi Fi, have the app installed on your smartphone
Speaker 1: and on your TV, and when you open it. When
Speaker 1: you open the app on your TV, it says, hey,
Speaker 1: open the app on your phone, and as long as
Speaker 1: you're on the same Wi Fi network, it somehow finds
Speaker 1: that you're the same person with the same app and
Speaker 1: it will just log you in on the TV. So
Speaker 1: those are the three methods I've seen for logging in
Speaker 1: on the TV. Oh the other one is the activation code.
Speaker 1: So sometimes it'll just when you open up an app
Speaker 1: like a YouTube TV or something, you'll say, hey, type
Speaker 1: in this code on your phone. Go to YouTubeTV dot com,
Speaker 1: slash activate and type in this six digit code. That'll
Speaker 1: activate it as well. So it's gotten easier, it's gotten
Speaker 1: a little bit more streamlined. But no, as far as
Speaker 1: I know, the Amazon fireTV upgrade process will save your
Speaker 1: Wi Fi password, but no other password there, So that
Speaker 1: is that's gonna be a little bit tricky. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get someone to help you to do that.
Speaker 1: But the good news is some of these apps that
Speaker 1: you download on there will be easier to log in
Speaker 1: as long as you have them logged in on your phone.
Speaker 1: So I would say, find the passwords, get them all
Speaker 1: in one place, call the friend to help you out,
Speaker 1: and have your phone handy as well, so that you
Speaker 1: can help log into some of those apps through the phone.
Speaker 1: Great question, Paul, and you're right. The fireTV is fantastic
Speaker 1: for the voice support. So the fireTV Cube, once you
Speaker 1: hook it up to your TV, it's almost entirely voice controlled.
Speaker 1: And right now, wow, I'm looking at Amazon Prime. It's
Speaker 1: usually one hundred and forty bucks. Right now it's on
Speaker 1: sale for one oh nine one ten thirty dollars off
Speaker 1: and this is a pretty new product, so that's that's
Speaker 1: a pretty good price. And once you have this thing,
Speaker 1: I've been trying all the different ways of asking the
Speaker 1: voice commands and it works with a lot of the
Speaker 1: popular apps. So you can say, like the other day,
Speaker 1: I literally said to it, resume watching I think we
Speaker 1: were watching Platonic on Apple on Apple TV Plus. I
Speaker 1: said resume watching whatever we were watching, and it just
Speaker 1: came right to the point where we were watching it
Speaker 1: last and resumed And it can do it also with
Speaker 1: channels and music. I mean, it's really really good. So
Speaker 1: if you want that hands free TV experience, the Fire
Speaker 1: TV Cube is a way to go. And I'm not
Speaker 1: talking like I know the Apple TV can do the
Speaker 1: series stuff, but this is real, Like you don't even
Speaker 1: have to turn on your TV. It will whatever you
Speaker 1: say to this thing, it will just take it from there.
Speaker 1: It's pretty pretty good. Thanks for the call, Paul, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: All right. Couple things I wanted to tell you about here.
Speaker 1: Number one, since we're on the topic of movies and
Speaker 1: TV shows, the Super Mario Brothers movie. If you like
Speaker 1: video games at all, I saw it in the theaters.
Speaker 1: It was great. It's a fun little movie. It's nothing special,
Speaker 1: but it was fun. This will be on Peacock starting
Speaker 1: August third, so that is the date a lot of
Speaker 1: people are wondering about and they finally have a date
Speaker 1: for that movie. So Super Mario Brothers Movie will be
Speaker 1: on Peacock on August third. Hopefully you can get I
Speaker 1: don't know if you can still get a free trial.
Speaker 1: A lot of these services you can get a free
Speaker 1: trial of Peacock was giving users a free trial for
Speaker 1: a while. I'm not sure if that's the case anymore, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but that's something to look out for. Always.
Speaker 1: Google like free trial plus the name of the service
Speaker 1: to see if you can get it. Someone told me
Speaker 1: they were sign up for Apple TV. They want to
Speaker 1: pay for us, so don't pay for it. Look in
Speaker 1: the Target app, look in the best Buy app. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they give three months free on those services. The other
Speaker 1: We've had Jared Numan on the show before. He does
Speaker 1: a newsletter that is really good called Advisorator, and he
Speaker 1: at the end of each at the end of each newsletter,
Speaker 1: he will tell you like which services are streaming for free,
Speaker 1: and what are the apps and everything, So definitely sign
Speaker 1: up for that Advisorator dot com, a d v I,
Speaker 1: s O R A t o R Advisorator dot com.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the newsletter, I'll say, like,
Speaker 1: here's all the free streaming codes right now. And Paramount
Speaker 1: Plus has been free for like since it launched. You
Speaker 1: can literally just put in a different code every time
Speaker 1: it expires and get it for free. So I'll put
Speaker 1: the link on the website. Rich on tech dot tv,
Speaker 1: this was pretty cool. Shazam can identify songs in TikTok
Speaker 1: Instagram and YouTube. So Shazam's been around forever. You're pretty
Speaker 1: familiar with how it works. Every song has a fingerprint.
Speaker 1: It listens to that fingerprint. It identifies a song. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're listening, if you're on TikTok or Instagram or
Speaker 1: YouTube and you hear a song that's just like wow,
Speaker 1: what is that? And somehow the information's not on the screen,
Speaker 1: or maybe you just want to remember this. All you
Speaker 1: have to do is open up Shazam, tap the blue button,
Speaker 1: and switch back to the app that was playing the song,
Speaker 1: and it will figure out the song. This is a
Speaker 1: new feature according to mac Rumors, but there's actually an
Speaker 1: easier way to do this. So if you have an iPhone,
Speaker 1: you can swipe down from the right upper right hand
Speaker 1: corner to bring up what's called the Control Center, and
Speaker 1: you can add a Shazam button to that. So if
Speaker 1: you go into settings, you can add the Shazam button
Speaker 1: to your control center. So just go to Settings, Control
Speaker 1: Center and it says music recognition. It's a little Shazam icon.
Speaker 1: Apple bought Shazam a couple of years ago. If you
Speaker 1: didn't realize that, but if you're in any sort of
Speaker 1: app and you want to hear what's playing, you just
Speaker 1: swipe down from the right hand corner, just tap that
Speaker 1: Shazam button. It will recognize what's playing and it will
Speaker 1: put a little notification on your screen and we'll also
Speaker 1: save that inside the app. Again, all on the website
Speaker 1: Richontech dot TV.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: That closes out this hour. More of your calls coming
Speaker 1: up next. Give me a call Triple eight rich one
Speaker 1: O one eight eight eight seven four to two, four
Speaker 1: to one zero one. Give me a call if you
Speaker 1: have a question about technology. This is rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome to rich on Tech. This is the show where
Speaker 1: I talk about the tech stuff I think you should
Speaker 1: know about. My name is rich DeMuro. You can find
Speaker 1: me on social media at rich on Tech. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and yes, i am now on threads at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Phone lines are open at triple eight rich one oh
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. Coming up this hour, more of your calls.
Speaker 1: We'll have the feedback segment at the end of the show,
Speaker 1: and doctor Renee Doua is going to join me to
Speaker 1: explain how her new app called Together can take your
Speaker 1: vitals with justice. Selfie and if I didn't try this,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't believe it. But it's the first of its kind.
Speaker 1: You aim your smartphone at your face and it will
Speaker 1: show you your blood oxygen level, your pulse, your what
Speaker 1: else does it do? Your respiration, your blood pressure. It's
Speaker 1: all pretty amazing. So again, that will be doctor Renee Doua.
Speaker 1: She's actually the same person who invented the doctor on
Speaker 1: demand app called Heel, which got quite popular during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: She will join us to talk about that app. Triple
Speaker 1: eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four to one zero one. Hello at richon
Speaker 1: tech dot TV. Is the email address. Scott is in
Speaker 1: Costa Mesa. Scott, what's up?
Speaker 8: Hey, Rich?
Speaker 13: Well, before he gets my question. While I was on hold,
Speaker 13: I was thinking of other names for the sphere. Oh,
Speaker 13: the globe, the bubble, dot, get around in the round.
Speaker 1: In the round. Interesting. That reminds me of a circus
Speaker 1: act though, you know those things that they circle around
Speaker 1: it in the motorcycles exactly.
Speaker 13: Yes, I was thinking planet, but that's too close to
Speaker 13: Planet Hollywood. And then I like sphere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just tough to say sphere because if you
Speaker 1: if you say it though anyway, but that's what's gonna
Speaker 1: be called. So it's fine, we got it.
Speaker 13: Come to the sphere and have a ball.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 13: Well, so you're rich on tech, Well I'm Scott under Rock.
Speaker 13: I'm not technical savvy in any way, but and I
Speaker 13: know you're a tech show, but this is a question
Speaker 13: about technical but also financial. And I was wondering, like,
Speaker 13: what the stock price has been for Meta with the
Speaker 13: release of Threads.
Speaker 1: Hmmm, well, let's see. Let's look up Meta.
Speaker 13: I would do that myself, but I'm just I've got
Speaker 13: the only technical thing I have is a lane.
Speaker 1: Well, the stock price for Meta right now is two
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety dollars and fifty three cents up a dollar, sorry,
Speaker 1: up five sixty two over the past five days. That's
Speaker 1: two percent. So and if you look at this little
Speaker 1: graph here, well, it looks like I'm not a financial guy,
Speaker 1: but it looks like it's if I had to say something,
Speaker 1: it looks like it's down in after hours trading, but
Speaker 1: apparently it's you know, over the past five days, it's
Speaker 1: been up. So here's the thing. Threads actually does not
Speaker 1: have any advertising on it right now, and so I
Speaker 1: think that people are. You know, they see the big
Speaker 1: picture of Meta doing really well with this because it's
Speaker 1: one more avenue for them to collect information and data
Speaker 1: about a wide range of people. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: they're not actively selling ads, so it's not going to
Speaker 1: contribute to the bottom line right away, but ads will
Speaker 1: definitely be in the future your plans of course. And
Speaker 1: a couple more things. I know we talked about threads
Speaker 1: a lot, but this has really come on the scene
Speaker 1: very very quickly. But if you look at the threads
Speaker 1: iOS listing on the App Store, a lot of people
Speaker 1: are looking at the privacy they call it, like the
Speaker 1: privacy nutrition facts for iOS and the data that Instagram
Speaker 1: the apps developer can collect on you and can link
Speaker 1: to your identity. Is the following on threads health and
Speaker 1: fitness data, financial info, contact info, user content, browsing history,
Speaker 1: usage data, diagnostics, purchases, location contacts, search history, identifiers, sensitive info,
Speaker 1: and other data. It's the kitchen sink of all the
Speaker 1: data on your phone that Meta wants to suck up
Speaker 1: and put into their advertising system. Now we do know
Speaker 1: that app and Meta are frenemies because Apple came out
Speaker 1: with this thing where if you've ever installed an app,
Speaker 1: and it says ask app not to track, So most
Speaker 1: people say, yeah, I don't want you tracking me. And
Speaker 1: that took like ten billion dollars off the bottom line
Speaker 1: for Meta because they can't have the same access to
Speaker 1: data that they had in the past of people using
Speaker 1: iPhones before they can get everything they wanted. And then
Speaker 1: Apple said no, let's kind of silo these apps a
Speaker 1: little bit more and also let's ask people if they
Speaker 1: want to share. So that was a big one. App
Speaker 1: tracking transparency, that's what they call it ATT App tracking transparency.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you want to enable this on
Speaker 1: your phone, which I'm sure you should or you have,
Speaker 1: you go to settings, scroll down to privacy, so there's
Speaker 1: that actual setting for privacy says I've seen security, and
Speaker 1: then you can tap on tracking and I actually I
Speaker 1: actually have this turned off fully, so apps can't even
Speaker 1: ask me if they want if they want to track me,
Speaker 1: but it says allow apps to request to track, and
Speaker 1: I just say no. Across the board, the less data
Speaker 1: the better. Let's see. Uh, let's go too, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: so many questions here. Let's go to Chris in Miami. Chris,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich Hey, well you, sir, I'm doing fantastic.
Speaker 1: What's up?
Speaker 12: I love listening to that you comment you just made
Speaker 12: a few minutes ago.
Speaker 3: That was apps.
Speaker 12: I was media other night, like, you know, I want
Speaker 12: to download this app. It's asking for the dog one
Speaker 12: kitchen sink. It wants to know when I'm walking out
Speaker 12: the door, when I'm having a salad at Whole Foods.
Speaker 12: And I'm like, I don't I have that same thing
Speaker 12: you do. I don't allow apps to track me. But
Speaker 12: you look at the list of things that they want
Speaker 12: from you from just downloading an app, and I'm like,
Speaker 12: You've got to be kidding me, right, I use people
Speaker 12: for real. And I'm like, I heard you talk about that,
Speaker 12: and I was like, that's exactly how I feel most
Speaker 12: of the time. I don't download a lot of apps
Speaker 12: because of.
Speaker 1: Such Yeah, well I download them all and I just
Speaker 1: you know, you do what you can do. So I
Speaker 1: definitely definitely say no when I can. Sure, how can
Speaker 1: I help?
Speaker 12: Well, I'll make this quick because I think I called.
Speaker 12: I called a couple of weeks ago, but my last
Speaker 12: call to you ring Doorbell. So went out bought this
Speaker 12: second generation ring Doorbell Pro. Now there's another little issue here,
Speaker 12: and I just I just wanted to clear it with you,
Speaker 12: is that the condo that I live in has a
Speaker 12: peep hole. Okay, so if I remove that device two
Speaker 12: screws and a peep hole screw, remove it and then
Speaker 12: install the Ring Doorbell.
Speaker 3: Pro, it's fine.
Speaker 12: It's got really great camera, the most advanced camera. The
Speaker 12: problem is it's not on the front of the door,
Speaker 12: but on the reverse side of the door, where there's
Speaker 12: now three holes. There, there's three areas that once accommodated
Speaker 12: these particular areas like the screws, and that's.
Speaker 3: Not good for me.
Speaker 12: So if I go, if I downgrade to the one
Speaker 12: with the peepole, such as all of it okay, now
Speaker 12: downgrading the quality of the camera, which I don't want
Speaker 12: to do because apparently in this one here that's battery operated,
Speaker 12: it's one of their most advanced camera. I just figured
Speaker 12: I'm going to toss.
Speaker 1: This to Rich So you're are you So you're worried
Speaker 1: about what aspect of the peopole cam the quality of it?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean I have the Ring Doorbell second generation
Speaker 12: Pro battery operated one which I haven't yet hooked up
Speaker 12: a charge of battery. But that's going to be an
Speaker 12: easy install right, But the problem is is that I
Speaker 12: can't use the peepole suppose I don't want to. But
Speaker 12: then isn't there a kit to close that off from them?
Speaker 12: They say no, So you've got three holes in the
Speaker 12: backside of your door.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean for the now if you're talking,
Speaker 1: so you're trying to figure out if you should just
Speaker 1: go with the peepole cam because it's going to cover
Speaker 1: those holes on the backside and it's meant to do this.
Speaker 12: Yeah, but it's a lower quality camera though, isn't it
Speaker 12: like a book twenty nine?
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Okay, so this is people Cam
Speaker 1: is HD. The people Cam is h HD. The Video
Speaker 1: Doorbell Pro. Let's see you get enhanced dual band Wi
Speaker 1: Fi color night vision. And do they say, let's see
Speaker 1: if we can find the specs on this camera HD
Speaker 1: video with night vision. So I'm not sure that the
Speaker 1: specs are any better, but I need to check and see. Also,
Speaker 1: the pro is a wired installation. So the Video Doorbell Pro,
Speaker 1: how would you how would you have this on your
Speaker 1: door if it's wired?
Speaker 3: It's not wired.
Speaker 12: The one I got is the one that is just
Speaker 12: has the battery.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, Well here's the thing. Yeah, okay, ones, I
Speaker 1: see it. Okay, So here's the thing. They're all okay.
Speaker 1: The video doorbell Okay, the pro is HD, and so
Speaker 1: is the wired and so is the people The Video
Speaker 1: Doorbell Pro two is a little bit higher. It's fifteen
Speaker 1: thirty six p HD plus. But here's the thing. You're
Speaker 1: talking about a condo. Aren't you in a hallway?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 12: I have a hallway bout my dorman, a hallway around meself.
Speaker 1: So I don't think you need higher than HD quality
Speaker 1: because you're not trying to reach out to a street
Speaker 1: or something. People who are going to be in front
Speaker 1: of this are going to be a pretty close proximity.
Speaker 1: So I think an HD camera would be just fine
Speaker 1: in that case. And I think that the people cam
Speaker 1: is meant for this sort of application. You can use
Speaker 1: the other ones, but this one is going to lock
Speaker 1: through the door. So you've got the camera on the
Speaker 1: outside of the door, You've got the backside of the
Speaker 1: battery on the inside of the door. It's a cleaner installation.
Speaker 1: It is what it's meant to be. And I think
Speaker 1: in your case, Chris, because you've got an enclosed hallway
Speaker 1: that I'm guessing the you know, is not one hundred
Speaker 1: feet away or something like that. You're going to have
Speaker 1: a pretty smaller setup that I think is going to
Speaker 1: be just fine. So I would go with the people
Speaker 1: cam install that I have not installed that one, but
Speaker 1: I've seen it, and you know, it's a good solution
Speaker 1: for someone who lives in a place that you know
Speaker 1: you either don't want to change the door or you can't.
Speaker 1: You can still have the security of a Ring cam,
Speaker 1: but if you listen to last week's show, make sure
Speaker 1: it sees what you need it to see, because if
Speaker 1: it's anything like mine, you know it's stopped recording at
Speaker 1: the moment I needed it to record. So that's something
Speaker 1: to keep in mind, is the timeout. And also one
Speaker 1: other pro tip with these Ring video doorbell cams that
Speaker 1: a friend told me when I was complaining about the battery.
Speaker 1: He said, dude, get a second battery. That way you
Speaker 1: can just swap them instead of sitting and waiting for
Speaker 1: it to charge. So if you get a camera from
Speaker 1: Ring and you have a battery on it, just get
Speaker 1: a second battery and that way you can just hot
Speaker 1: swap them instead of waiting for the thing to charge
Speaker 1: because they're not the fastest charging batteries in the world.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we've got doctor Rene Doua to talk about
Speaker 1: her new app called Together, which can take your vital
Speaker 1: signs with just a selfie. Plus, we've got more of
Speaker 1: your calls at eight rich one oh one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one, and
Speaker 1: the emails and the feedback are piling up as we speak.
Speaker 1: The feedback segment, your favorite segment coming up a little
Speaker 1: bit later in the show. You are listening to Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro
Speaker 1: here hanging out with you talking tech. The feature I
Speaker 1: was trying out on YouTube if you have YouTube Premium,
Speaker 1: they're testing this new lock screen feature, so it allows
Speaker 1: you to watch a video in full screen without switching
Speaker 1: or turning it off or something. So it's called avoiding
Speaker 1: accidental taps on the lock screen. This is a test
Speaker 1: if you only only if you have YouTube Premium. So
Speaker 1: if you have YouTube Premium, lock screen disables touch input
Speaker 1: while watching a video, so accidental taps do not pause,
Speaker 1: skip or disrupt it. So you know, if you're watching
Speaker 1: a video on your phone, you kind of move it
Speaker 1: around next thing you know it like exits or pauses
Speaker 1: or something like that. So here's how to find this.
Speaker 1: So you go, if you only if you have YouTube Premium,
Speaker 1: open up YouTube and go into your upper right hand
Speaker 1: corner where it says you know your profile picture. You
Speaker 1: tap that. Then it says your premium benefits. And if
Speaker 1: this is available to you, it says try new features.
Speaker 1: You tap there, and right now it says one available.
Speaker 1: Avoid accidental taps with lock screen available until July thirtieth.
Speaker 1: How to use while you're watching a video in full
Speaker 1: screen mode, Tap on the gear icon in the top
Speaker 1: left hand corner of the screen. That's not true, it's
Speaker 1: in the upper right hand corner. Weird, and select lock screen.
Speaker 1: That is so weird. How do they get that wrong?
Speaker 1: There's no gear icon on the upper left that's interesting.
Speaker 1: How would they get that wrong? YouTube? Come on, you
Speaker 1: can turn that on. It's available on iOS and Android.
Speaker 1: It's invite only, so if you don't see it, please
Speaker 1: don't write me an angry email. You just don't have
Speaker 1: access to it. James is in Los Angeles. James, you're
Speaker 1: on with Rich?
Speaker 10: Hey, Rich, love the show. How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing great? How are you good?
Speaker 10: You know you're doing just as good a job as
Speaker 10: you do on TV. Oh, I learned something new every week.
Speaker 9: Man.
Speaker 1: That that is my goal, is you know? I want
Speaker 1: this is a show that I'm you know, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to make this show accessible to everyone, right Like I
Speaker 1: want people who love tech to listen. I want people
Speaker 1: who don't care about tech to listen and say, wait
Speaker 1: a second, what do you just say? That's kind of useful.
Speaker 1: So obviously I cover a wide range of topics on
Speaker 1: the show. So I'm glad to.
Speaker 10: Joe your podcast Your podcasts are actually worth re listening
Speaker 10: because I'm relearning stuff as well as the site job.
Speaker 1: Man, thanks, James, you need a job promoting me or
Speaker 1: what I mean? It sounds like you're hired. What can
Speaker 1: I help you with?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 10: I bought this external hard drive and I don't know
Speaker 10: if I can say the brand, but it just totally
Speaker 10: just died on me after three or four months, and
Speaker 10: I don't like. Somebody told me if I tap on
Speaker 10: the hard drive kind of like a starter with a
Speaker 10: car back in the day, like it'll make back to life.
Speaker 1: We called that the old the old. Oh you tried it.
Speaker 10: I tried it.
Speaker 5: What do you call it?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I called like. I mean, back in
Speaker 1: the day, we would just hit stuff, you know, it
Speaker 1: was like the fix. But you know, like you hit
Speaker 1: a TV, it comes to life. You hit you know,
Speaker 1: you give something a little hit. Nowadays everything's so solid state.
Speaker 1: I don't really think that works anymore. And a hard
Speaker 1: drive specifically, you probably don't want to hit it too much.
Speaker 1: What kind of is it? A solid state or a
Speaker 1: like a spinning like a disc.
Speaker 10: So I thought it was really cool because it's an extern.
Speaker 10: It's like it's actually a backup phone charger and a
Speaker 10: hard drive. Oh that's cool. You know I can store
Speaker 10: stuff and charge my phone at the same time as
Speaker 10: a brand called Eye disc. It's spell A two k's.
Speaker 7: At the end.
Speaker 3: And it just died.
Speaker 10: And I did the tap feature, like I tapped it
Speaker 10: real hard a couple of times. Yeah, not too hard,
Speaker 10: but you know tap and the files actually showed up,
Speaker 10: but they won't load.
Speaker 1: So do you need these files or do you just
Speaker 1: want to rescue this thing?
Speaker 10: I kind of do need the files. They're not super priority,
Speaker 10: but you know, they've got memories and stuff on them
Speaker 10: that I used as a backup and I didn't do
Speaker 10: my triple backup right right properly because I let a
Speaker 10: subscription die.
Speaker 1: Okay, well here's the thing, and I'm running up right
Speaker 1: against a hard break here. Number one. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: this website. The logo sort of a takeoff of sand
Speaker 1: discs that that alerts me, like, h, I don't really
Speaker 1: like this. I would try some recovery software, something like
Speaker 1: Stellar s T E l l A R disc drill
Speaker 1: is another one, recouvera r E c u v A
Speaker 1: that's another one. But I would check those out see
Speaker 1: if you know, try something free, don't use something that's
Speaker 1: paid to try to rescue these things. Also try a
Speaker 1: different computer as well, because it may be that you're
Speaker 1: plugging this thing into a device that doesn't recognize it,
Speaker 1: or maybe doesn't have enough power for the USB to
Speaker 1: power up. But I'm looking at their website and it
Speaker 1: seems to promise a lot. I'm not sure the quality.
Speaker 1: I can't vouch for that, so good question, James. Hopefully
Speaker 1: you can salvage this data and back up. Please more
Speaker 1: rich on Tech right after this. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking
Speaker 1: technology and joining me now is La based physician doctor
Speaker 1: Renee Dua. She has got a new app called Together
Speaker 1: by Renee. Thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 14: Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: So this is not your first app. You came out
Speaker 1: with an app a couple of years ago called Heel,
Speaker 1: which sort of revolutionized healthcare at home.
Speaker 14: That's right, and so we started Heal actually nine years
Speaker 14: ago and we just sold the company to Humana and
Speaker 14: the idea was exactly as you said, primary care in
Speaker 14: the home, booking from an app.
Speaker 1: So now you've got a new app. This is called
Speaker 1: Together by Renee. And what caught my attention about this
Speaker 1: app is that it measures your vitals by taking a selfie,
Speaker 1: So you can get your blood pressure, your heart rate,
Speaker 1: respiratory rate, and blood oxygen plus more, all by just
Speaker 1: taking a selfie on your phone. So tell me about
Speaker 1: this app. Why did you come up with it?
Speaker 14: Well, so I'm not just a doctor. I'm also a
Speaker 14: caregiver for my parents and I was finding that in
Speaker 14: between their doctor's appointments, I had tons of little tasks
Speaker 14: booking appointments, making sure refills were picked up, making sure
Speaker 14: those medications that they're taking are actually working by looking
Speaker 14: at their vitals, calling and getting the notes from a
Speaker 14: doctor's appointment. And I sat down with my husband, who's
Speaker 14: also my co founder, and I said, you know what
Speaker 14: I need to automate me? How do I make myself
Speaker 14: into a health assistant that everyone can use? And that's
Speaker 14: sort of the genesis of how we came across this idea.
Speaker 1: So let's first start with the scanning the medication bottle.
Speaker 1: It's not your typical scan. It's more of an AI
Speaker 1: scan because it's very easy to scan the bottle and
Speaker 1: then it's reading the information. So how's that working.
Speaker 14: So that's proprietary technology that we built in house because
Speaker 14: again we didn't want you to have to type. We
Speaker 14: allow you to take a scan of your bottle.
Speaker 1: And which, by the way, is round, so it's not
Speaker 1: easy to scan. And so you've figured out a way
Speaker 1: to make it easy to scan because it's round.
Speaker 14: That's exactly correct. And I'm so grateful that you picked
Speaker 14: up on that nuance there, because many people think, oh,
Speaker 14: I'm just snapping a video and I'm sorry, snapping a
Speaker 14: picture and I'm learning so much. No, the round bottle
Speaker 14: has a lot of information that's useful directions, things you
Speaker 14: shouldn't take with your medications, that all important refill number.
Speaker 14: How many times have you called your pharmacy? And the
Speaker 14: first question is enter the number the prescription number of
Speaker 14: your medication. Who knows right here? The Together app combines
Speaker 14: all that information into one place and then takes action.
Speaker 14: The Together app can call the pharmacy, knows the identification
Speaker 14: number of that medification and knows your name and information
Speaker 14: and will ask for the refill.
Speaker 1: Accuracy is really important when it comes to everything that
Speaker 1: you're mentioning. So how accurate are your scans? How accurate
Speaker 1: is the information that the app can get from this.
Speaker 14: We've spent a year and a half just doing research
Speaker 14: and development to improve accuracy and to ensure protection, so
Speaker 14: they're very accurate. And again everything gets better week after
Speaker 14: week as we're releasing new features on the app. So
Speaker 14: each week I see that our accuracy is even better
Speaker 14: than already. Very good.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, the feature that you can download and try immediately,
Speaker 1: which I did, was the selfie for your vitals. So
Speaker 1: you stand there for about a minute and you just
Speaker 1: basically use your selfie camera and it will start showing
Speaker 1: you some of your vitals and then when you're done,
Speaker 1: it'll show you even more so, which vitals is this
Speaker 1: taking and how is it getting those?
Speaker 14: So the vitals that it's taking are your heart rate,
Speaker 14: your oxygen level in your body, and your blood pressure.
Speaker 14: Those are the most important ones. And specifically, the camera
Speaker 14: is looking in the backs of your eyes at your retina,
Speaker 14: looking at blood pressure in the vessels in the backs
Speaker 14: of your eyes to give you these numbers.
Speaker 1: And what can this information be used for?
Speaker 14: Well, I think a lot about my patients who are
Speaker 14: anxious or depressed, they have elevated blood pressures, elevated heart rates.
Speaker 14: They want to know how they're feeling and if they
Speaker 14: are in fact feeling those symptoms. I also spend a
Speaker 14: lot of time with people who have high blood pressure
Speaker 14: on three or four medications, and even still their blood
Speaker 14: pressure is not controlled. And I personally, when I see patients,
Speaker 14: I tell them, use the app check your blood pressure
Speaker 14: once or twice a week. Let's make sure these medications
Speaker 14: are working.
Speaker 1: Is this the first time we've seen an app take
Speaker 1: vitals like this in such an easy manner?
Speaker 14: This is the first time you've seen it in the
Speaker 14: United States, that's correct, And on the iPhone we've gotten approvals.
Speaker 14: We are the first to release such a feature.
Speaker 1: Can you speak to how AI is being used in
Speaker 1: this app?
Speaker 14: The entire back end of Together is artificial intelligence, right.
Speaker 14: It is the assistant, It is the support that's making
Speaker 14: those appointments, reminding for those refills, reading those labels on
Speaker 14: the medication bottles, looking in the backs of your eyes
Speaker 14: to check your blood pressure. All of that is dependent
Speaker 14: on artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: Now, the other thing is that your medications that you're
Speaker 1: taking will sort of tell the app what you need
Speaker 1: to do when it comes to preventative steps. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit, right?
Speaker 14: And so to me, this is actually a very very
Speaker 14: cool feature in that when we're scanning those pill bottles,
Speaker 14: we're learning, for example, that you take a medication for diabetes.
Speaker 14: People who have diabetes need to have their cholesterol checked,
Speaker 14: need to have their kidney function checked, right, need to
Speaker 14: have their liver enzymes checked. And so sometimes you go
Speaker 14: to the doctor's office and you find out these things
Speaker 14: aren't done or forgotten, or you forgot. Here's a task
Speaker 14: list of things that you can do. And once again
Speaker 14: we can help by calling and scheduling appointments. We're going
Speaker 14: to be able to help by helping you get those
Speaker 14: results and keeping them in one place so that you
Speaker 14: can look at them yourselves or share them with someone
Speaker 14: you love.
Speaker 1: And what's the goal of this entire app.
Speaker 14: You know, I really want to transcend the healthcare experience
Speaker 14: in America right now. I think a patient is dependent
Speaker 14: on what a doctor can do in that fifteen to
Speaker 14: twenty minute office visit, and is dependent on what insurance
Speaker 14: will allow. So many insurance companies have a prior authorization
Speaker 14: or a form that needs to be filled out before
Speaker 14: you can actually get the care they need you need.
Speaker 14: I really want patients to be able to know what
Speaker 14: they need and take care of it themselves, and share
Speaker 14: what they need with their daughter or their partner so
Speaker 14: that their partner can say, listen, I saw that you
Speaker 14: need to get your cholesterol checked. Let's get you to
Speaker 14: the lab and get that done. Let's not wait for
Speaker 14: another appointment with a doctor.
Speaker 1: Two things that I specifically have a problem with is
Speaker 1: the online appointments very hit or miss every single doctor,
Speaker 1: and also filling out paperwork. Why can't I fill out
Speaker 1: that paperwork before I get there? Or why do I
Speaker 1: have to fill it out every time? Why is it
Speaker 1: pen and paper? Is there a reason for that? Is
Speaker 1: there something I don't know that doctors know that? Why
Speaker 1: they make us? Why this is so hard?
Speaker 14: Well, I think you've hit on two fundamental needs that
Speaker 14: patients have wanted for years and we have yet to
Speaker 14: achieve and hopefully together will achieve. Actually, and second, the
Speaker 14: by design disruption of your day. Right, none of these
Speaker 14: systems communicate. You don't know what your optometrist wants in
Speaker 14: the same app as your met form and refill, right.
Speaker 14: I think these systems are by design to keep all
Speaker 14: your information disjointed and disorganized. And once again, that's literally
Speaker 14: why we called it Together Together. We'll call and make
Speaker 14: your appointments. Together, will fill out your forms and send
Speaker 14: them over ahead of those appointments. And we want all
Speaker 14: your information in one place so that you can see it,
Speaker 14: You can control it, you can share it with someone
Speaker 14: you love, and you own it. It's your information, It
Speaker 14: belongs to you, and you can do with it what
Speaker 14: you think is right for you.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the privacy aspect.
Speaker 14: Yeah, Together is a hip a compliant company. Your information
Speaker 14: belongs to you and anyone you want to share it with.
Speaker 14: It's totally private. We do not share your information without
Speaker 14: your permission.
Speaker 1: Okay again. The app is called Together by Renee. It's
Speaker 1: available on iOS, it's available now, it's free. Who do
Speaker 1: you think should download this app?
Speaker 14: Together by Renee is for aging Americans, anybody on more
Speaker 14: than one medication, any caregiver who wants to know what's
Speaker 14: happening with someone they love.
Speaker 1: How can folks download Together by Renee?
Speaker 14: Go to the app store download Together by Renee, or
Speaker 14: go to Together app dot com and you can download
Speaker 14: it there.
Speaker 1: Okay, doctor Renee Dua, thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 14: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Rich all right, more rich On Tech coming your way.
Speaker 1: If you want to give me a call, it's triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. You are listening
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech Tracy's and Myriatta Tracy. What's going on?
Speaker 14: Hi?
Speaker 3: I get a usual update.
Speaker 4: I have an iPhone ten and it updated, gave me
Speaker 4: some kind of an update, and then it took.
Speaker 3: Away its speaking feature to me.
Speaker 6: And I am blind and diabetic.
Speaker 4: Oh and so I have my phone my.
Speaker 10: Asps talking to me, but it took away on the
Speaker 10: last updates.
Speaker 1: And do you know which update. Do you know what
Speaker 1: kind of phone you have? You said, an iPhone, iPhone ten,
Speaker 1: iPhone ten. Okay, as far as I know, the iPhone
Speaker 1: ten still gets the latest updates. This is the last
Speaker 1: year for that, I believe. Let's see. Hold on iOS seventeen.
Speaker 1: They just came out with the supported models for iOS seventeen,
Speaker 1: and let's see if your iPhone ten is going to
Speaker 1: get that. I think it's the end of the line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the iPhone ten, ten, ten S Max and tens will
Speaker 1: be the first will be the first phones that are compatible,
Speaker 1: which means the iPhone ten has fallen off the list.
Speaker 1: But the good news is Tracy, that your phone still
Speaker 1: has the latest update. And I'm looking at mine, and
Speaker 1: I believe you're referring to the voiceover accessibility feature and
Speaker 1: that is still available. So maybe this got turned off.
Speaker 1: But what I would do is go into settings and
Speaker 1: then accessibility voiceover and turn it back on, and I
Speaker 1: believe that should do what you need. And then once
Speaker 1: you're in there, they've got all kinds of options for speech,
Speaker 1: for Braille, for voiceover recognition, for description, for images, what's
Speaker 1: on the screen for texts. So I'm looking at it
Speaker 1: it's all there, and if you enable that one more time,
Speaker 1: perhaps that will be reactivated because it could be very
Speaker 1: useful in your situation for looking at those apps and
Speaker 1: seeing what they can do. But that's where you find it,
Speaker 1: and you can actually ask Siri as well, So if
Speaker 1: you want to turn this on or off, you can
Speaker 1: just hold down your side button and say turn on voiceover,
Speaker 1: and that will be an easier way of turning it on.
Speaker 1: Because you did mention you're visually impaired, so that might
Speaker 1: be an easier way to just turn it on to
Speaker 1: ask Siri to activate it. So turn on voiceover and
Speaker 1: you can hold down the side button to activate Siri,
Speaker 1: or you can say the hot word, hey Siri, which
Speaker 1: I don't want to say because it activates your phone
Speaker 1: and I just did it online. So Tracy, hopefully that helps,
Speaker 1: and you may want to think about a potential upgrade
Speaker 1: next year when the software is no longer supported. The
Speaker 1: latest software is no longer supported on your particular device.
Speaker 1: So thanks for the call today, appreciate it all right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the feedback segment. Not to be confused
Speaker 1: with the feedback segment, that's a whole other show. Gale rights.
Speaker 1: Gail writes, good afternoon, Rich, I just heard you talk
Speaker 1: to that woman about the Meta notification. That's how my
Speaker 1: Instagram account was hacked. I got one of those messages
Speaker 1: in April, and, like a can't say that word, I
Speaker 1: provided my password. Then I got more questions from someone
Speaker 1: using the Instagram logo. When I refused to answer, the
Speaker 1: contact told me my account would be restored for three
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. I then deleted any subsequent messages. This morning,
Speaker 1: I got one from Meta about how I was falsely
Speaker 1: using my account. I did what you said and ignored it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your valuable information, Gail. Yes, I was
Speaker 1: thinking more about the caller and that notification. I think
Speaker 1: in her case it might have been legitimate, but still
Speaker 1: very concerning when you have to deal with this stuff.
Speaker 1: Jill writes in as a casual Twitter user, can you
Speaker 1: explain what your guest meant when he said Twitter is broken?
Speaker 1: I don't see any differfer instant a function. Educate me, Joe, Joe,
Speaker 1: that was that was an opinion that Twitter has broken.
Speaker 1: Many people share the idea that Twitter is a different
Speaker 1: place than it was before Elon Musk took over. But
Speaker 1: you are correct at its bear basic functionality. Not much
Speaker 1: has changed. I use Twitter, I still use it, I
Speaker 1: can still tweet, I can still post stuff. Yes, they
Speaker 1: push you to paying for certain things. Yes, stay for
Speaker 1: a while, made you log in to look at things. Yes,
Speaker 1: they said you can only look at a certain amount
Speaker 1: of tweets a day. I think it was six hundred
Speaker 1: for But I never came up against any of those situations.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's still working pretty much the same unless
Speaker 1: Elon changed something again. But the reality is there's a
Speaker 1: lot of how do we say, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people that just don't like Twitter because of Twitter and
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, and so there's a lot of complaining going
Speaker 1: on surrounding that, when in reality, Twitter is still pretty
Speaker 1: much the same functionality that it's been since it started.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 1: Tom says, hey, Rich, I really am enjoying the show
Speaker 1: on KFI. My concern about joining threads is that it
Speaker 1: sounds like you have to have an Instagram account and
Speaker 1: also security concerns on Instagram. Thanks. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: the security concerns are on Instagram, but yes, you do
Speaker 1: have to have an Instagram account to join threads, and
Speaker 1: people are really up in arms about this idea that
Speaker 1: if you want to delete your Threads account, you have
Speaker 1: to delete your Instagram account. Now, why would you want
Speaker 1: to delete your Threads account on day number three? Like
Speaker 1: you get in there and it's like getting into a
Speaker 1: club and you're like, oh, this place is terrible, and
Speaker 1: you walk right out. I mean, if you don't like Threads,
Speaker 1: just don't use it. Stop using it. You're gonna delete
Speaker 1: your whole like Facebook account, Instagram meta account because you
Speaker 1: don't like Threads. Just delete everything, delete your posts, don't
Speaker 1: use it, delete the app and just come back to
Speaker 1: it in six months and rethink it. But you don't
Speaker 1: need to like get rid of it. So people are
Speaker 1: going nuts over this. Yeah, you got to delete your
Speaker 1: whole Instagram account if you want to delete Threads. Okay,
Speaker 1: they're connected. What do you expect? This is a company,
Speaker 1: it's meta. This is not you know, your grandma giving
Speaker 1: you something nice. This is like, this is may a
Speaker 1: big company that wants to grab your data. They're gonna
Speaker 1: make it tough for you to leave, easy to get in,
Speaker 1: tough to leave. It's like the Hotel California so big.
Speaker 1: A big article on life Hacker, how to delete your
Speaker 1: Threads without losing your Instagram delete all your content, make
Speaker 1: your profile private, deactivate your profile, and if you're ready
Speaker 1: to nuke your Instagram profile, you can delete your account.
Speaker 1: I would not recommend doing that. It's too early to
Speaker 1: say whether we're going to all use threads forever or not,
Speaker 1: so just try it out. If you don't like it,
Speaker 1: delete the app and worry about it later. Mike says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: greetings and congrats on twenty five in the can great show,
Speaker 1: great subject matter. Now, I think you're ready for the
Speaker 1: next step. Bumper music, especially the lead in the beginning
Speaker 1: of the show for Adam's Ears just perked up. I
Speaker 1: think there is a payoff to having the exact same
Speaker 1: tune every time something dynamic. It's an identification thing, identification thing.
Speaker 1: We hear it, we know it's you. We have to
Speaker 1: listen up and you're not too far off. The song
Speaker 1: you last played into break an electronic sound. I think
Speaker 1: it was Tycho, one of my favorite electronic bands. Put
Speaker 1: it at the front, just saying Mike in San Diego,
Speaker 1: thank you. I appreciate that. Oh for perspective, he says,
Speaker 1: I'm sixty seven tech interested, capable and listen watch radio
Speaker 1: TV podcast via streaming. I have Internet radios throughout the house. Mike,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. I appreciate it. It was tough enough
Speaker 1: for us to get the bumper music right, so we're
Speaker 1: getting that and the music, the intro music. I kind
Speaker 1: of like it's different every time. Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: gotta get through more. Mark says for the caller with
Speaker 1: the really old iMac, the option to turn it into
Speaker 1: a Chromebook might really be the best option. Because the
Speaker 1: web browsers aren't updated for old mac os versions, a
Speaker 1: lot of websites won't work. Uri says, Hey, Rich, I
Speaker 1: always look forward to your weekly show via Apple podcasts.
Speaker 1: You have an excellent way of simplifying tech into Layman's terminology.
Speaker 1: Yad someone whose contents was stolen from the trunk of
Speaker 1: their car, and I wanted to add a tiny tip.
Speaker 1: When storing anything in your trunk, move it before you
Speaker 1: get into the place you're going to park. Otherwise everyone
Speaker 1: around you will see you putting them into the trunk
Speaker 1: of your car as you walk away. That's so smart
Speaker 1: and I've thought about that, Jerry and Cleveland, says Rich.
Speaker 1: You were talking about the use of what three words
Speaker 1: on your show last week. I use it to locate
Speaker 1: my parents' graves at the massive cemetery they're buried at.
Speaker 1: Even when I know the section, it would take me
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen minutes of walking to find their headstones.
Speaker 1: Now the app takes me right there. Sorry for you're
Speaker 1: a loss, but Gerald, that's a great Jerry, that's a
Speaker 1: great use in Cleveland, Ohio. And finally, Roger Miller says,
Speaker 1: I was listening to what your son said about Final
Speaker 1: Cut Pro and the iPad, and I'm very inspired. I'm
Speaker 1: a forty plus year video editor who's been trying to
Speaker 1: get basic functionality, and your son's accomplishments with Final Cut
Speaker 1: Pro inspired me to give another go and bingo, I'm
Speaker 1: now doing basic functions and I have worked. Now I'm
Speaker 1: working on Final Cut Pro. Thank you to your son.
Speaker 1: I'm finally on my way. Thanks to your show, and
Speaker 1: keep up the good work. Sincerely, Roger, Roger, thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. My name is rich Demiro.
Speaker 1: Another show in the can. Thanks for being a part
Speaker 1: of it. Rich on Tech, We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Take care,